"I'm melting...."

Humidity. I grew up with it. When I landed in California in October of 1981, I stepped off the plane and after about 42.5 nanoseconds, I got used to the low humidity of the Bay Area. I don't remember the humidity being too bad when I traveled back to New York to visit the family. But when they retired to Florida and I visited them here... whoo boy, Florida is a whole 'nother kettle of mullet.

Right now, it's humid here (I don't know the number), but luckily it's not too hot. The trip hasn't been as bad as some others I've made. Still, when you step out of the shower and dry off, you never get completely dry. I feel like I'm walking around with a little film of schvitz all over me. And what's with the eyebrows and leg hair? My mother swore that the Florida weather made her hair grow faster. I'm inclined to agree.

Aunt is looking good. She turns 73 (I think) this year. No word yet on the lung biopsy, but she's already started the quitting-smoking routine in anticipation of the worst. She hasn't had a bad reaction to the chemo for her MM and, yes, she still has all her hair. She's been sore since the biopsy on Friday, but the doctor said that's primarily due to the MM - anything they do to or near her bones will make her hurt.

Dad also looks good. Lost a little more hearing, but his stories are holding steady (I know because I've heard all of them before - multiple times!). He woke up this morning with a muscle cramp in his right arm that caused him to not be able to bowl today, but some Aleve is making it better. He'll go to the doctor tomorrow if he's still not right (or visit his friend Vic, the retired chiropractor... aka "the miracle worker"). My brother and SIL will be down to visit at the end of April.

Disney was great, as usual. We stayed in one of their 'value resorts' and it was fine. A basic room, but done with a cute theme and decor. We were at the All-Star Sports Resort, one of three 'All-Star" resorts (the other two were All-Star Movies and All-Star Music). Our room was in the "Touchdown!" section, so the wallpaper was full of football players (what else?) and the central area was a football field. The "Home Run" section had gigundo baseball bats and the pool was shaped like a baseball diamond, with Goofy shooting baseballs out of a canon (actually, it was water). Disney knows how to take a theme and run with it.

The parks (we visited the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot) were full of people, but definitely not as crowded as most other times I've gone. Wait times hovered around 10-25 minutes, with a few clocking in at over 60 minutes. We decided to pass on most of those, but took a FastPass for the Jungle Cruise. We saw most of what we wanted to see in the three parks in about 15 hours. We may go back later in the year - we still have 3 days left on our 5-day Parkhopper ticket!

Lastly - the sweater... it's done and it fits! Auntie wants me to crop her head off the picture before I post it, but for those of you in Ravelry, the full photo is there. Here she is... although, she looks much better than the edited version below!

Heading home soon, another early morning tomorrow and an hour-long drive to the airport.

Izzn't it Interesting

When I go to Ravelry to look up a yarn store, I naturally go to the "People" tab. And everytime I do, I think, "Where the hell is the yarn store field?" And then I remember that the yarn store input field is on the "Yarns" tab, not the "People" tab.

Guess I think of LYSs as friendly people who happen to have a mongo stash that I can buy, rather than just a place to find a certain yarn.

Interesting...

In other news, Knitterliness has been getting RSS feeds to what will soon be the new Sock Summit website. OMG!! The teachers! The classes! The schedule! I. Can. Not. WAIT!! The official site still has the old information, but according to Stephanie's blog, they have been making lots and lots of changes to it... and the peek is probably the pre-production version of the pages. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous!

Back to working on "Hey, Teach!" again. Now I just need to find some mindless knitting to take with me on our trip. Back to the same dilemma - I don't need to start a new project, but all the WIPs I have now are at stages that either need more brain power than I can spare, or are not portable at all. Oh well; I may just have to cast on another sock!

This *Might* Help

When I log into Ravelry, I used to keep my browser on my Projects page (or the Forums page, if I was feeling particularly voyeuristic).

I've decided now to keep my browser on my Stash page... My thought is that if I keep looking at all the beautiful yarn I already have (and mentally know which pattern I want to knit them into), that I'll be less tempted to buy more. Yesterday, I successfully fought off a couple of skeins of Kaffe Fassett yarn that Bobbin's has on sale ($19.00!!) by thinking of my Stash page. Maybe it will work after all (even if it works just a little bit, that's a good start).

No comments yet to my "Made with Love" post??

Made with Love

Okay, here's something going around on Facebook now... "Made with Love." I'm posting it here because any FB application you sign up for opens you and your information up to more and more places outside Facebook... and I'm none too crazy about their own privacy policy to start with.

So, it's going here, and here's the deal:

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year (2009).
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something over the internet. It may be a mixed CD. It may be a hand-knit bag or stuffed toy. It may be made of beer cans. It may be pretty, it may be goofy, it may have a swear word on it. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure! [not me either].
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

Here's the important part:

In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note of your own and make 5 things for 5 others.

So... let the counting begin!

Icky Sicky

DH appears to have either come down with a cold, or one of his worst allergy days in a number of years. His voice went from deep to deeper to Marlene Dietrich to gone in a matter of a few hours. He's been napping and taking drugs, but he still sounds pretty funny (unless he's coughing, in which case he sounds pretty bad).

Ravelry has a new position open - email fairy. I thought about applying, but decided not to... then got an email from Kadootje who said she had! Go, girl!

Am almost finished with Aunt's sweater, round 2. The right arm is done, save for the cuff; the left arm is about 1/4 done. I'm going to take the left arm down to the same length as the right, but before I start the cuffs, I'm going to let her try it on and tell me if she wants them longer or shorter. This one practically fits me, so it should definitely fit her.

Speaking of Aunt, she's been responding well to the chemo treatments for her Multiple Myeloma, but a bone scan last week apparently showed that the cancer has already affected her bones. And in the course of doing an overall exam, they gave her a chest x-ray, which showed a "shadow." After more tests, it's been confirmed as a "mass," and she'll have a biopsy on Monday (3/23). I suspect that even this won't convince her to quit smoking for good (and it probably won't convince my brother to quit, either.) When the results of the biopsy come back, the oncologist will decide how to attack which things in which way.

It's not looking good, but she seems to be taking it well. I'm sure when I see her next week the truth will come out - that we're both scared. Over the phone it sounds like she's planning for the worst and will just accept what comes her way. I doubt I'll be that sanguine.

Happy St. Pat's

St. Patrick's Day is our anniversary. Well, one of our anniversaries (we have at least one anniversary every month). This one is the day we met, the first day of our cohort group at the University of San Francisco's Cupertino campus. The class was about 1/3 women, 2/3 men, and two of the men wore suits - DH and one other guy. DH wore the suit... lookin' good. The other guy let the suit wear him. He wore the suit as an affectation. Ick.

From the beginning, DH was someone I wanted to know and be friends with... and that's just how it worked out. Friends first, friends always.

Okay, so when we went to the speakeasy, Bourbon and Branch, a couple of weeks ago, as we were walking from the bar to the restaurant (Colibri, a fabulous Mexican restaurant near Union Square), we passed a store that sold beautiful glass artworks... fruits, vegetables, animals... Here's the link, but... um... You may not want to have the under-17 crowd peeking over your shoulder when you click it. They truly are beautiful in person - don't be frightened.

Went back to our favorite restaurant last night. After our disastrous Christmas dinner there, and after I sent a 3-page letter outlining the problems we had, they sent us a $200 gift certificate. So we decided to go back for our anniversary, and invited our doctor and his wife to join us (this is fairly common, to invite them along on special days - we usually spend Valentine's Day with them, too!). The food was great, the service was definitely better than on Christmas, but... you know, the place just didn't feel right. The head chef wasn't there; neither was her husband (also a chef), and the rest of the staff were just, well, staff. We decided that when we go back, it won't be for any special occasion. Don't want to build up for a let-down. On the other hand, a random Thursday night to take advantage of their 2-for-1 short ribs special... mmm mmm mmm.

Off to bed; had that deep cleaning thing at the dentist today and it plum tuckered me out.

Southland

Visiting the in-laws this weekend. FIL is a sweetie; it's fun to see what DH will probably be like in 30 years or so. But he's hard of hearing. Brother-in-law was also visiting so we had a chance to see him and spend quality breakfast time with him, too. He's also hard of hearing. MIL is starting to get that way, too. It's been an interesting time making sure we look directly at them when talking and not talking too fast. With DH's parents, there's an additional gotcha - we can't use too many 'modern' words or phrases. Been fun, though; I love them all. And Chloe, the little Yorkie puppy, is too sweet. Boundless energy, but sweet and cute.

Knit what may be the fastest knit in the world - Fetchings, fingerless gloves. Started them at 3:00 Friday and knit for about a half-hour. Knit for about 45 minutes on a drive up to San Francisco that night. Knit for about 5 hours on the drive down to the ILs yesterday. Knit about 1 hour back at the hotel last night, then started the finishing work. Another half-hour this morning - done! So what's that... 7.75 hours? Easy knit, fun, not too complicated to get frustrated, not too simple to be deadly boring. Lovely pattern (which I, of course, must modify).

Early departure tomorrow morning, but only after we get our favorite waffles for breakfast!