Yearly Archive: 2012

Good Saturday morning to you all. Please treat yourselves well today. In many parts of the country, this means paying particular attention not only to the temperature but the heat index today. Stay cool, stay hydrated. Me, I think I’m going to spend part of the day in a movie theater with G. (Not hiding from the heat or anything, just want to go see a movie.)

Aloha!

Many many thanks for all the birthday greetings. You all are great. 🙂

I had a wonderful day. As many of you know, I generally spend my birthday hiding inside. This isn’t because I have any particular fear of my birthday. Rather, it’s because of a particular fear of my birthday when combined with my geographic location. It seems like half the eastern seaboard descends upon the DC area for the 4th of July. Tourists on the Beltway, jammed Metro cars, lost people, crazed shoppers. All sorts of things that I like to avoid, so I’ve made it a habit to spend my birthday indoors. But this year, I decided to buck the trend, and ventured out into the world not once, but twice!

I went to a trunk show at The Yarn Spot. There were many many fabulous yarns to look at and pet. The store was packed, which was great to see. Granted, some of the folks may have been lingering a little longer than they might have, as the store had air conditioning and many of the patrons were still lacking in power. However, Victoria (our hostess) welcomed everyone to stay for as long as they liked, for whatever reason. I even won one of the door prize raffles: some lovely pink sock yarn, with Outlast Technology™ (which is supposed to prevent your feet from getting overly warm or cold).

I went home and started winding some of my new yarn (more on this later), and met up with G. After some discussion, we decided to head out to lunch, and to see the new Spiderman movie. (Definitely worth seeing. Garfield is a very different Spiderman from Maguire, and I think I like the new guy’s take on the role better. Also, the things (non-mistakes, at least) meri noticed while watching the movie: Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy) carries a Levenger Circa notebook and there’s a copy of Seabiscuit on Gwen’s bookshelf.

Then we came home, and there was knitting. (Of *course* there was knitting.) I decided that I wasn’t a huge fan of one of the yarns that I’m using to knit up SSMS, and happened to get a great deal on a fabulous replacement at the trunk show. I cast on with the new yarn and got a few rows in before G and I decided to call it a night.

All in all, a pretty good day. I had a lot more fun than would have happened if I’d stayed inside. I made it through the day with minimal physical pain. I didn’t suffer at the hands of crazed people in any great way. Though, I still think those of you who head down to the Mall every year on the 4th (you know who you are!) are completely nuts. 🙂

Thanks again!

The new installment of the SSMS™ is here! Happy knitting to commence.

After a brief appointment this morning, I met up with Jenn back at the house. Then, joined by G, we went out to a very tasty lunch at a little Chinese / Japanese restaurant. We deposited G back at home, and went to have our toes painted, which was amusing all on its own. The bulk of the day was spent with knitting and “Burn Notice,” topped off by some yummy nachos for dinner. Many thanks to Jenn for all the awesome!

Having a girly afternoon with Jenn.

Heh. I’m watching the LA Galaxy vs the San Jose Earthquakes game from last night. When G left to go get gas, it was 1-0 SJ. When he got back 20 minutes later, it was 3-2 LA. One of LA’s goals was scored by SJ, even. Add in 7 minutes of extra time in the first period, and this is turning into a strange game.

We drove over to look in on G’s parents’ place,to make sure nothing untoward had happened during the storm. (Nothing had.) We had all of two functioning traffic lights for the trip there, including a several mile stretch of Route 1. We encountered exactly one intersection that had police directing traffic. Attempting to follow the rule of “treat black intersections as four-way stops” was a good way to try to get killed.

Any gas station with power (which were rare) was either out of gas or had a huge line.

We did see the source of some of the power word, though: a line of 6 wooden power poles that had simply sheared in half dropping down onto the strip mall parking beneath. It says something about the extent of repairs needed in general that this particular case didn’t merit a crew.

We’re back home now, and I think our plan is largely to stay inside until the dumb returns to normal levels.

It would seem that I am utterly hooked on the Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl (hereafter referred to as the SSMS™). I first started it on some Mille Colori Sock & Lace, and it’s turning out quite lovely. I took pictures of the work in progress after I finished the first pattern installment, but I can’t for the life of me find them. So, instead, you get two pictures of how things are looking after the second pattern installment.

We got the second pattern installment on Tuesday. I didn’t get around to working on it until Wednesday, and finished up the new bit of knitting that day. Realizing that I was going to be sans shawl to work on for several days, I dug around in my yarn stash, and found the rest of the Kauni Effekt that I had kicking around, and cast on a second shawl. I admit it. I’m addicted.

We don’t get another pattern installment until Tuesday! That hardly seems fair, with it being a holiday weekend and all. Ah well. I guess I shall have to try to feed my knitting jones by working on the giant rectangle of stockinette that I’m knitting up for a store sample for The Yarn Spot. We’ll see how that goes.

Good morning, earthlings and other friends. I have a good reason for being in a good mood this morning! I woke up with ow, but much much less ow than I have had in the past few days. Heck, I was able to get out of bed without whimpering. I would dance a jig, but, well…

Here’s hoping that today bucks the trend of its Monday brethren and treats everyone gently.

Aloha!