Last day of May

Been a fairly quiet day. Beautiful weather, that's for sure. Did a little reading, a wee bit of knitting, took some photos, played with the dogs, and did a pretty major cleaning of the living/dining room areas. Mind you, the *rest* of the house is still a disaster, however it feels good to have the main area tidy. I can't believe how quickly it gets looking bad--I suppose it's to be expected with four animals shedding on the rug, and Zoe pulling out at least six toys before she finds one she likes, and Zoe leaving stuffed animal fluff all over the place.

My appetite has definitely returned. Fixed myself a breakfast sammidge around 9:00 am (honey-wheat English muffin topped with honey ham, swiss cheese & a fried egg) which tasted scrumptious. Around 3:30 I suddenly realized I was exquisitely hungry, and craving Taco Bell like there was no tomorrow. Had a burrito supreme AND a steak quesadilla, and by 4:30 was ready for dinner. Psychologically I know I shouldn't be hungry yet so haven't eaten anything since that late lunch, however I don't think I'll be holding out much longer.

Ralph's fishing trip didn't go quite as planned. They hadn't even gotten out of the harbor when the boat's engine seized. They tried fixing it, to no avail. Ralph even jumped in the water to see if he the prop was tangled on something. They finally ended up getting towed back to the dock. All was not lost, though, as Ralph said he enjoyed his time "on the water" and with the guys, even if they didn't do any fishing. I'd ask him for more details, but he's sound asleep in his big comfy chair :-)

Had a frustrating photo moment today. During the summer we get great flocks of swallows chasing mosquitos & gnats. They usually hunt about 20-30 feet above our backyard for 30-40 minutes at a time. A flock came by as I was sitting outside reading & began their usual acrobatics above the yard. I picked up the camera, set it to "movie," turned it on, zoomed in--and the entire flock flew away. They weren't even there for one full minute. Bunch of teases, the lot of them. . . . (thinks evil thoughts about birds).

This blue jay was far more cooperative. I got a total of eight shots of him, including a couple with another jay. I posted them all on flikr, neatly cropped & color-adjusted so I suggest you check out the pictures there. They came out better than I anticipated; the zoom on our camera is pretty darn good if I do say so myself, plus the severe cropping brings the bird into sharp focus.

Should I be alarmed by this?

So, I'm on wikiHow and do a search for "clam chowder." Came back with seven hits, the fourth of which was "how to fake vomit."

F-R-I-D-A-YYYYYY!

Ignoring the mess on the floor, I like this shot. Three of our pets in peaceful repose :-)

Pretty good day today. Feeling almost 100% back to normal. Had a very productive day at work. Finished listening to "Before Green Gables" on the way home. Wore my new utilikilt. Ralph is thinking about grilling scallops on the BBQ (major delectable yumminess) although we both agree clam chowder sounds good too. And, of course, it's FRIDAY!



Not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow. If the weather is nice, I may take the girls to the park. Might do some spinning. Almost certainly will do some knitting. Might just lie on a blanket in the backyard, reading a book & eating Skinny Cows on a semi-regular basis. Definitely take some pictures. Yarn store is a possibility. A whole glorious day with no obligations, all to myself :-)

Got a postcard/advertisement today; the Contemporary Crafts Fair in Santa Monica is coming up; in fact, it's next weekend! Ralph has the time off so maybe we'll go to that. Big Sis and Niece-in-Law might be interested too, come to think of it. Although being a "noodley-wed" NiL may prefer to stay home with The Boy.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Making decent progress on The Brown Socks That Will Never Be Finished. Both gussets are done, and I did five rounds of the leg on one of them at lunch today. It's all K1P1 rib from here on out. The gusset/leg transition came out really well; I did the gusset all in k1P1 rib and continued in the pattern on the instep & back of the heel. I knew I couldn't decrease all the way back to the original number of stitches or it would be too tight, so I decreased until there were eight gusset stitches left on each side. Then, I started switching from the pattern to K1P1 rib two stitches on each needle, every other row until the whole thing was rib. The pictures are of the back of the heel, and the gusset. Pretty nice if I do say so myself.

Feeling much better today. Had actual hunger pangs this morning, although they were easily satisfied with crackers. Lars cooked bacon & eggs for his lunch, and while the thought of eating them was gross beyond words, they did smell good--especially the bacon. And I'm even going to cook dinner tonight (fish & corn); the past two nights I couldn't even bear the thought of cooking.

Almost done with my "Before Green Gables" audiobook; maybe 1-1/2 disks left. I'm enjoying it so much, I'll be sorry when it's over. Perhaps I'll listen to "Anne of Green Gables" afterwards just to keep the story going, even though it has only been a few months since the last time I listened to it.

Haven't had to chain Zoe up when we leave the past few days. I am glad for this; I really didn't like having her all tied up. Now that I don't have to hurry home to let her loose, I can go out to dinner some evening after work with Big Sis. Not sure when, but soon I should think.

Our nectarine tree is LOADED with fruit. You can actually smell the fruit when you walk by the tree, there is so much of it. Even though it's not quite ripe yet, the birds have already started to eat some of it. Not that I'm worried about that; there are far more nectarines than Ralph could possibly eat, and I'm not all that keen on nectarines (translation: don't like them at all, but will eat a couple just because they are from OUR tree).

Feeling a bit better

Today's pic: Hali and her eviscerated monkey. I like the bit of "monkey guts" dangling from her lip.

Still not what I would call "well" but definitely improved over Monday night/Tuesday morning. Spent at least 30 minutes of every hour sleeping yesterday, and slept pretty well all night too. We won't talk about the time spent not-sleeping other than to mention that I weighed four pounds less this morning than I did on Sunday morning. Of course I realize it's just fluid loss & not fat loss, so I'm sure that once I have an appetite again it will come right back. Did manage to eat some food today: about a cup of tomato soup; the top off a small bananananana nut muffin, three bites of my sammidge, some crackers, and about 4 cherries. That is a lot more than I managed yesterday!

Even went to work today. Not an exciting day there, but I got enough done that I won't be overwhelmed when I go in tomorrow. Patrick told me several times to go home, however since I was already there I stuck it out. Glad I did, too.

Had another weird dream last night. In it, my friend/co-worker Deborah was crying like she was fit to die; mascara running down her face, great sobs, copious tears. I kept asking her what was wrong, but couldn't understand what she was saying because she was crying so hard. Finally managed to figure out that her son, Michael (who is in the Air Force) had filled out one of his VA forms incorrectly and had to do it over. Where that came from I have no idea.

Ralph & I have been invited to go on a fishing trip to Catalina this weekend. Ralph is very excited about it, however I don't want to go. Six to eight hours on a boat watching other people fish, out in the sun, out on the moving moving moving water, bored and seasick, not able to get off the boat until the driver is good & ready to get off the water--not my idea of a good time. (Hmmm. Sounds a lot like going to Big Bear Lake when I was a kid.) So I will find something else to do and Ralph can have fun with his buddy on the boat.

Not much else going on. Hopefully I will have more interesting things about which to write tomorrow. Or the next day, perhaps.

Ill today

Ugh. Started feeling ill about 10:00 pm last night. Shan't go into detail, other than to say I suspect food poisoning. Have had nothing but fluids and one yogurt since midnight. Feeling somewhat better now but still not top notch. And of course tomorrow is the mandatory quarterly breakfast meeting at work. Food sounds *horrid.* Hope I feel well tomorrow. . . or preferably tonight. Or now. Now would be good. You listening to me, belly??

A very domestic day

Been very housewifey today. Did two loads of laundry, baked some lemon bars (which Ralph says came out very well), picked up all the dog toys & vacuumed the rug, picked up the few things I forgot when I went grocery shopping and now am fixing a pot of lentil soup. I also did a little bit of spinning.

Other than that, it's been a quiet & restful day. Pity I have to go back to work tomorrow, but at least it's a short week.

Today's pic: sparrow in silhouette :-)

Memorial Day

Normally I don't post comics--but thought I would make an exception for this one. Here is today's "Heart of the City" strip by Mark Tartulli. Click on it to make it larger--the gun & helmet look a lot less like a leg lamp in full size.

Middle of the three-day weekend

Pretty good day today. Met Big Sis for breakfast at IHOP before going to the Cookie Lee party. Sis's blog describes it pretty much as I would, so you can check out her blog ("Knit & Pearl;" the link is over to the left). In the IHOP parking lot there was a car with a license plate that I found amusing; I've posted a pic. If you have trouble figuring it out, take a peek at the type of car.

Not much else going on. Might knit for a while, or work on Sudoku puzzles. Hmmm.. . wonder if I could knit a Sudoku scarf?

Penultimate Saturday of the month

Had a pretty good day today. We did go to the Scottish Festival, and we had a nice time there. We both bought new utilikilts. They didn't have a fitting room; you just put it on then "dropped trous" to make sure it fit correctly. You can see me to the left there, helping Ralph try his on. Those are the only things we bought, although we saw quite a few things we liked. Ralph in particular liked the swords, and almost bought a sporran to go with his kilt. I was interested in the hand-woven shawls and if I hadn't been so overly hot at the time we looked at them, I probably would have bought one.

There was also a rather amazing group of dancers/musicians. They did sort of a Scottish tap dance and played violins. At the same time. Yes. I couldn't get a really good shot as we were too far away, but here's one of the shots I did get. We also spent some time listening to a group of harpists & roaming around looking at the booths.

After we got home, I read, knit, and napped for a while (Ralph did two of those three as well) and then we headed out to the bookstore. Ralph ran an errand while I bookshopped. Only got one, but it's an omnibus of three books in one volume. The individual paperbacks were $7.99 each and this was only $14, plus I had a coupon for 25% off, thus getting the equivalent of $24 worth of books for only $11. I feel I got a real bargain :-) We then had dinner at the Fish Tale & now Ralph is reading while I update the blog.

Tomorrow is the Cookie Lee party. Big Sis, if you are reading this--I need to know when & where we are meeting.

The GG's play in the yard

three day weekend, woo hoo!

Hooray for a three-day weekend! I am so ready for it!!!


Got off work early (2:00 pm) although it really feels like I put in a full day. It took about an hour to drive from work to Long Beach, and I went straight to the grocery store. Spent an hour & a half doing the shopping, then unloaded the cart and ran my card through. Not authorized. Hmmm. . . .oh, I see, I spent almost $400 and my debit card has a $300/day limit. No worries. Pull out my credit card. Not authorized. Hmmmmmmm. Can't think of any reason for that card not to be good. Went to the car, pulled out the cell phone & called customer service. The automated program said I missed my $14 payment that was due last week. Funny, thought I had paid that. . . Ended up going to the ATM, pulling out $300 cash and using the other $100 I already had on me to pay for everything. Went online when I got home to check my recent bill paying & realized no, I had paid *Ralph's* credit card payment, but had failed to pay mine. What a maroon! Still, kind of frustrating to have them put a stop on my card for a $14 dollar payment that is only a week late, when that's the first late payment I've had in I can't remember how long.



Anyway, got home, unloaded the THIRTY bags of groceries (plus two items that were too large to fit in the bags), rested a bit, then had the fun of throwing out all the stuff in the fridge that was too old to keep & then putting away all the groceries. PHEW! Finally finished!! Now I can look forward to a (mostly) restful weekend. There is a bit of housework to do, but with Ralph to help it shouldn't be an issue.


Don't know for sure yet if we are going to the Scottish Festival tomorrow. I'd like to go, if it's not too cold & rainy. Then Sunday is the Cookie Lee party with Big Sis. Plus I plan on doing lots of knitting & maybe even some spinning, and a trip to the bookstore of course, even though I haven't finished my current novel. It's really good, too; it's called "The Worst Hard Time" and it's about the Great American Dust Bowl and the events that caused it. Pretty astounding stuff.




Today's picture is another shot I took at Dog Beach. Not my girls, but a pair of some sort of collie-looking dogs. I wish I could have taken a better picture of them; they were really beautiful even with their fur all wet & sandy. They were having such a good time chasing the ball.

Had a weird dream last night. I dreamt I was at a county fair, trying to get the Monkees' autographs. Mike Nesmith admired my socks and wanted me to knit a pair for him too, so I pulled out my tape measure to measure his feet; they were really small--smaller than mine even! For some reason my cat, Mudgie, appeared at about that point; why the cat was at a county fair is beyond me. Eventually the Monkees agreed to give me their autographs, but I had to sign their autograph books too. OH! Almost forgot, the Mamas & the Papas were there, too, but one of the Papas was kinda Ozzy Osbourne-ish and kept yelling & spitting at the audience. Mama Cass had to drag him offstage which is a pretty good trick since she's been dead for several decades.

Brought my knitted sheep hand puppet to work today. I figure that's a safe place to keep it until we've got the moths under control. It would upset me to lose any of my knitted items to moths, but this guy is really cute & was a lot of work so I really don't want it damaged.

And another short post

Loved the look of this little guy's face. Took this at Dog Beach on the weekend. His owner says he is 14 years old. Wish I could have gotten a better shot.

Quiet day today. Rained on & off. Went to lunch with Mr. Boss Man; nothing fancy, just sandwiches at Quizno's. Not sure what prompted it. About 15 minutes before my normal lunchtime he just walked up to my desk and said, "Let's go to lunch." We talked about some upcoming process changes, but nothing major, which I have just misspelled about six times :-P (with three of those times being "jamor").

Hey, Ralph's home already! Good thing dinner is almost done.

Yesterday & today I actually took a break at work. Three of the girls at work go for a short walk (about 10 minutes of leisurely stroll) and they invited me to go with them. It's way too slow a walk for any real exercise benefit, but the joking around & conversation is certainly worth it. Even if today's walk was in a light rain.

short post today

Today's pic is one I took of Hali on Sunday. Typical photographer--managed to catch her with her eyes closed!

Speaking of eyes, mine are really tired today; I think it's a combination of sun & too much computer. Since I drive east to work & west to get home, I stare into the sun about two hours a day, plus all the brainsucking. . . it's just catching up on me I guess. I'm posting for two reasons: one, because I try to post at least once a day so I don't fall out of the habit; and two, so Big Sis has something to read :-)

Started a new audiodisk on the way to work, "Before Green Gables." It's a prequel to Anne of Green Gables. I think I'm going to like it. The story is written very much in the style of the original books. I can almost imagine it as a story being told by Anne herself; it's got that sort of a romantic feel to it. I don't mean romance as in lovey-dovey, but sort of a "days of yore/knight in shining armor" kind of feeling.

Anyway, time to get off the computer.

Making progress (again) on the socks

Doesn't Zoe look glamorous? Got her right in the middle of rolling around in the grass. Those are Hali's feet at her head.

I've almost finished the re-knit gusset on the first sock. While I dreaded (and procrastinated) frogging it, I am really glad that I did so. It looks much better than it did, plus I don't have the worry of "will it fit??" butting in on my knitting.

Almost forgot! Saw a weird thing yesterday at lunchtime. Now the important thing to remember is that, according to my car's thermometer, it was 99 degrees outside. As I pulled into the parking lot I passed a gardener using a leaf blower. The hood of his grey sweatshirt was pulled up over his head. The hood was the only part you could see; the rest was covered by his blue sweatshirt. That's right--99 degrees and he was wearing TWO sweatshirts. The only explanation I could think of was the leaf blower must put out a lot of heat, and that was the only way to keep his neck & back from getting burned.

Three-day weekend coming up, huzzah! Kinda snuck up on me. Not sure what I'm going to do; I told Big Sis I would go to a Cookie Lee party with her on Sunday, but I had forgotten it was the three-day weekend and Ralph & I had kinda talked about taking a trip for Memorial Day. On the other hand we don't have any set plans, and there are a couple fun things going on this weekend that we might go to on Saturday which leaves Sunday free for me to go to the party & then Monday to relax and maybe have a BBQ in the backyard. Guess I'll talk to Ralph when he gets home & see what he wants to do.



One of the groups I am in on Flickr has a fun new topic going on. Well, actually 26 of them, one for each letter of the alphabet, and you are supposed to post pictures of animals beginning with each letter. I posted betta, bison, duck, damselfly, egret, goldfish, owl and peacock. Had to force myself to stop so that others had a chance, too. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't go back tomorrow and post camel, hedgehog, heron and koi! OH! And I can download the pictures we took in Arizona of the zebu; and the emu, sheep, and alpaca we photographed in Virginia. I think we might have an ostrich photo somewhere, too, although those are probably somewhere on Ralph's computer so I'll have to sign on to his computer.

Anyway, it's about time to go fix dinner and I still haven't finished surfing all my usual websites. And I'm *supposed* to be vacuuming the living room. . . yeah, like that'll happen :-)

Nothing exciting at all

Not much to write about today. We watched "Sweeney Todd" on pay-per-view last night. It was pretty good, but I'm glad I didn't pay full price to see it in a theater. $3.99 pay-per-view beats $7.50/ticket any day.

Quiet day at work. Actually got off work on time without any last-minute "can you do this for me" calls or e-mails.

Today's picture is a shot I took at Dog Beach yesterday. As you can see, the weather was gorgeous; perfect for a day at the beach. Love how eager these two look, waiting for Mama to throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball. Ralph is the guy wearing the hat, seen directly to the left of the yellow lab's nose. Hali is directly to his left, and although you can't see her in this size picture Zoe's back is just barely visible in the original behind Hali.

Lovely day today!

Another good day :-) Since it was nice & warm we took the girls to Dog Beach. We pretty much got the last parking space on the street, which meant we didn't have to use the metered parking in the lot (score!). As we got out of the car, we heard an odd noise, and looked up to discover quite a few large birds nesting in the trees. One I recognized as a snowy egret, but the other species was a mystery to me. I looked it up in my Birds of California Field Guide (by Stan Tekiela; one of the best birding books I've ever come across) when I got home and discovered they were black crowned night herons. I've included one shot of an adult and one shot of a pair of juveniles.

The girls, of course, had a marvelous time running around on the beach, chasing other dogs and being chased themselves. Since it was so warm Ralph & I went into the water and coaxed the dogs to us over & over again. They'd get close, then turn and sproing/swim/run when a wave would come in. The beach wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected considering the number of cars on the street, although there were still plenty of other dogs for the girls to play with. If Zoe's sandy, tired face is any indication, I would say they had a pretty good time of it :-)

We also (again) bought some new fish for the aquarium: three tetras, two ghost catfish, and two very small cories. We also got three shrimp and some more plants. The aquarium is really starting to look good! Ralph is working on it right now, arranging and rearranging and de-arranging the plants.

Yesterday

What a nice afternoon we had yesterday! We did end up seeing Prince Caspian, which was pretty good. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE, YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH. I had the same feeling with this one that I did with the first: the screenwriters read the book a long time ago, and kinda remembered how it went, and just made up the bits they weren't sure of. There was a lot more fighting in the movie than in the book, which could have been left out if they had just used more of the original story. Also, I think Caspian was supposed to have been about 12 in the book, and he looks almost twice that age in the movie. Still, I liked one of the bits they added with the White Witch, and the actor playing the General was very good.

Afterwards, when Ralph checked his cell phone (which as a Good Citizen he had turned off during the movie) he had a message from the co-worker we were meeting with; they were running a bit late & would be at Outback around 5:30 instead of 5:00. This gave us time to look at the last few minutes of the Green Car Show that was going on at the Pike (which is where the movie theater is and just across the street from where we had dinner). Some of the cars were pretty neat. The coolest-looking of the concept vehicles, IMHO, was the Dodge Zeo. We didn't have our camera, but here's a link to picture (it's even the same color as the one we saw):
http://www.dodge.com/en/autoshow/concept_vehicles/zeo/



Dinner was wonderful. We arrived first, and had some cold, cold lemonade which was marvelous on such a hot day. After a while, when the others still had not arrived, we ordered a Bloomin' Onion. The co-worker and her husband arrived at about 5:45, with his daughter & granddaughter in tow (Joyce, Ray, Monique, and Star). We had to move to a bigger table. Dinner was yummy: prime rib with a crab cake, au grautin potatoes & green beans, followed up with a cinnamon oblivion. In the course of conversation, we were talking about bookstores and Joyce asked me what kind of books I buy. I said, "Lighthearted mysteries, lots of knitting books. . ." and she burst out, "Oh, do you knit? Can you make socks?" so of course I pulled the Brown Socks That Will Never Be Finished out of my bag & showed them. Her mother taught her to knit and she wants to learn how to do socks.



Still not able to get a good picture of the new fish. I'll keep trying though. I did get a fairly decent shot of the bat-faced plant. Even with the focus on manual it was hard to get a picture where the flower was in focus rather than the leaves.

Ralph's Birthday

Good day so far. Ralph & I aren't mad at each other anymore. Ralph seemed pleased with the books I bought him for his birthday. We had a nice breakfast at Mimi's Café: shrimp, artichoke heart and feta omelettes with asiago cream sauce, breakfast potatoes and a hot cinnamon muffin. Then we bought two koi for the pond and a betta for the tank. When we got home I made a batch of "chogglit chip coogies" in lieu of cake. I tried to get some pictures of the fish however they were moving around too fast for me to get a decent photo. The cookies, however, were far more cooperative.

We had planned on seeing "Prince Caspian" today, although we're not positive we are going to go. It is very hot outside and comfy-cool inside, plus we're meeting some of Ralph's friends for dinner and the showtime would make us a wee bit late meeting up with them. Actually it's one of his co-workers and her husband; it's his birthday today, too. We're going to Outback Steakhouse, yum!



I want to start spinning some of the fiber I bought in Arizona, but that would mean starting a new bobbin before finishing what I'm working on now. If I do that, I will probably never finish it up. On the other hand, it's not getting finished anyway because I want to spin the *other* fiber. What to do, what to do. . .

Birds!

Today on the way to work, I saw a killdeer! This is only the second time I have ever seen one in California. Too bad I didn't have the camera with me, although I doubt I could have gotten a good shot of it anyway. It was scurrying towards a field of tall grass pretty quickly, and by the time I could've pulled over it would have been well hidden.




Then on the way home, I saw a pair of mallards resting on someone's front lawn. It was only a few blocks from the house, so after I got home I grabbed the camera & walked back. Didn't want to scare them away by getting too close, but I did get a couple of shots. I think this one came out the best.




The bat-faced plant in the front yard is starting to bloom. Getting a picture of one of the flowers was more difficult than photographing the ducks; at least the ducks weren't being blown around in the wind. Also, the flowers are pretty small and the camera kept trying to focus on the leaves instead. This was the best shot I could get. Pretty blurry, I know. I'll try again tomorrow.

Feeling pretty angry at Ralph right now. While he was watering plants & refilling the pond, a large black widow came out from the low wall surrounding the pond. He of course had to kill it, despite my protests (his argument "It's scary!" my argument "It's not hurting anyone, it's outside where it belongs, and it eats mosquitos which spread disease.") I don't know which is making me angrier; the fact that he killed it; the fact that he completely and utterly ignored what I had to say as if it had no importance whatsoever, or the fact that if I had kept my big mouth shut instead of saying, "Oooh, what a cool spider!" he wouldn't have seen it in the first place. I don't like being angry with him, especially at the beginning of what should be (have been?) a nice weekend, what with tomorrow being his birthday and all. Foo.

Survivorless Thursday

No Survivor tonight. That sucks. On the other hand, it gives me a chance to go to bed early :-)

Not an exciting day today. Patrick, Koleen & I went to lunch together today. Nothing fancy, just burritos at Baja Fresh. It was nice to see Koleen (she was transferred to the other Ontario office up the street from ours); I wish she'd been transferred to our building too.

Ralph's birthday is the day after tomorrow. I've got his prezzink in the closet all wrapped & ready to go.

Nothing else today. Boring entry, I know. . .

Then, and now

Today I realized that it has been just over a year since we got Zoe. She has come a long way! Here she is on the day we got her (5/4/07) with Ralph, Hali, and Gonzo:

And here she is today (30 minutes ago, actually; ignore the messy floor please):

What a difference, don't you think? Her hair is glossy, thicker and longer, and she's much happier now.

Finished frogging the socks down today and have started re-knitting the first one. It took a long time to frog & get the stitches back on the needles, but I'm glad I took the time. I'll be much happier with the completed project with the revised gusset.

And again I say, the brown socks will NEVER be done

Finally broke down a couple days ago & had Ralph try on the socks I am knitting for his Christmaz prezzink. As I feared, the cuff is too tight. Frogged 'em down a bit, then realized that the ribbing on the right side gusset wasn't going to look right, so I'm frogging them all the way back down to just above where I picked up the stitches after knitting the heel flap.

Nothing else really going on. Been a "want to eat everything in sight" day today. Had breakfast just before 6:00, was hungry by 9:00, had lunch at 11:30, was hungry again by 2:00, finished dinner about half an hour ago and am wishing I had a big gooey dessert of some sort.

Have a bit of a headache & my shoulders hurt; too much time on the computer today I guess. Better sign off.

A touching gift

This morning, Ralph told me he had bought me a gift at the Faire yesterday. It was actually two gifts; one was a really nice pottery mug, very rounded, which holds a LOT of coffee. But the other was very special to me. It was a notecard with a sketch of a Scotsman playing a bodhrain for a fairy. Why so special, you ask? Well, the card was drawn by a friend of ours, Pat Morgan, who uses people around the Faire for his subjects, and this particular subject is a man I met when I first started working the Renaissance Faire, oh must be twenty years ago now. His name is Ian Abramowitz, or as I call him "Ian who's not with Kim." This was how I differentiated him from another Ian I met around the same time, an Ian who *was* with Kim. His name for me was "Susan who is not Linda." Although we only saw each other at Ren Faires, we became pretty good friends, and I always looked forward to seeing him. I was shocked and saddened when I learned he had passed away sometime between the San Luis Obispo Faire in July 2006 and the big Southern Faire in April 2007, and this card is a nice little memory for me.

Ralph heads out to the Renaissance Faire

Fibers

It occurred to me this morning that, considering my blog is called "Needles and Spins," I haven't posted a lot of knitting or spinning related shtuff. So here are a few fiber shots:

This is one of the yarns I'm currently spinning. It's a merino/tencel blend that I bought in Virginia in 2006, spun at 40wpi (that's "wraps per inch" for you non-spinners). It should be just right for socks when I've plied it.

One of the rovings I bought in Arizona. It's pure merino, colorway "primrose." Ralph doesn't like it, but I think he'll change his mind when he sees it spun up. At least, that's how I felt about it when I saw it in the shop. They had a spun sample and that's what convinced me to buy it.

Another merino roving from Arizona, this one in colorway "thistle." The roving is a little washed out in this picture; there is a bit more purple to it than it seems.

Love this stuff--navy blue kid mohair. Mohair is slicker than wool and thus needs to be spun more tightly than wool or it falls apart when you try to ply it. Ask me how I know this :-) Even though I was trying to avoid dark colors I couldn't resist this stuff. So shiny! A hat & scarf set, I think, or maybe gloves.

Mmmmmmm--love these colors! It's "sunset" by Louett, part of their Northern Lights line. Normally I refuse to spend more than $40 a pound for wool, but this I had to have. Besides, $50 a pound is pretty close to $40, wouldn't you say? I have eight ounces of this beautiful stuff. I'm thinking shawl, aren't you? Something lacey with a leaf-like pattern, very autumny.

Words

I like how this picture came out, even if it's not what I was trying to take a picture of. About a nanosecond before I pressed the shoot button, there was a bee crawling on the flowers. No clue what kind of a plant this is; it's in our backyard & when it's in full flower it attracts the bees like crazy. When I was a kid in La Mirada, we had a hedge of this plant in the front yard. The flowers, while small, have a fairly strong, sweet scent.

I had a "Sally" this morning, which got me to thinking about the words Ralph & I use with each other:

Sally: a headache. From "Nightmare Before Christmas," when Dr. Finkelstein awakes with a frog's breath hangover and calls for Sally.
Brainsucker: computer. Also, to brainsuck: waste time on the computer by surfing the net, playing computer games, posting to Blogger, etc.
Godbox: TV remote. He (or she) that has the remote is the god of the TV and determines what show we watch.
Dishtoad: cloth used for washing dishes, particularly a cloth that has been in the sink too long and has that distinctive dishcloth stink.
My eyes are red: I'm ready (red-eye)
My, you're tall: you are driving like a lunatic, please slow down/stop tailgating/get out of that person's blind spot. From "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," wherein Ford remarks that humans insist on stating the obvious such as "My you're tall" or "So this is it; we're all going to die." Considered to be less accusative than using the latter of the two.
Ooks: dog biscuits; short version of "cookies" (the dogs know what "cookies" are, but haven't caught on to "ooks" yet)
Q: Pee, as in "I think the dogs need to Q." "Pee" is a power word (see below) which the dogs associate with going outside.
Power word: Any word or phrase the dogs understand and/or get excited over, such as "cookies," "truck," "get to go" "yes" and "share the plate."

Anyway. That's what's on my mind this morning. Back to brainsucking. . .

The war is on. . .

Horrid, horrid moths. Flying around in MY house, around MY fibers. I just killed two of them, and missed a third. . .

UPDATE: Killed the third one, now there's a FOURTH flying around, taunting me.

A Grand Day Out!

What a fun day this was! First I met up with Big Sis for breakfast, where I had chicken fried steak with hashed browns, eggs and toast (my favorite breakfast-type breakfast). Then off to Encinitas for the chocolate festival. The chocolates we sampled were very good. My two favorites were the chocolate-cherry concoction at the O'gilvies booth, and the candied pansies. Didn't get the name of that booth, duh!

Afterwards we strolled around the botanical gardens. Saw some very interesting plants including cork trees; a western tanager (didn't get a picture of that, darn it!) and some phoebes; and lots of lizards. Here are a few pictures from the day:

First, a plateful of the candied pansies. They were first crystalized in sugar, and then dipped in dark chocolate with a wee bit of strawberry extract. Absolutely delicious!

Now, I thought this one was pretty amazing. It looks like a coral reef, doesn't it? But it's a desert garden! Cacti, succulents, lava rock and sand. I was quite impressed.

This is where you get cork--the bark of the cork oak. The bark can be removed without harming the tree, so it's a renewable resource. And the trees are really cool-looking too.

One of the many lizards running around the botanical garden. They were amazingly fast for such pudgy little guys.

Damselflies at one of the ponds. I had to use the zoom lens, and I'm actually a little surprised at how well it came out.

Fuh fuh fuh FRIDAAAAAAAY!!

Made it through the first week in Ontario, and it's already beginning to feel normal. The people there are really friendly which makes a heap-o-difference. Even the drive hasn't been bad, especially with CDs to listen to on the road. Plus today I located several places to have lunch, including a really good pizza place (don't even ask how many slices I had). Most of them are not within walking distance, which is a bit of a disappointment, but the pizza place is just one block from the office as is a Japanese restaurant and a Starbucks. This I can live with.

I also found a Krispy Kreme shop. I almost stopped & got donuts for the office, but was running a bit late and decided to save that for another day. I'm glad I didn't buy them, because someone else had the same idea and there were already two boxes of donuts in the kitchen! I knew I would be eating out for lunch so I used great willpower and didn't have any of them.

Weird thing happened this morning. I had several dreams last night that involved some sort of accident: a crashing blimp, a man getting buried in a caved-in hole, having a three-car fender bender. No one hurt in any of the dreams, nothing nightmarish about them. Anyway, I stopped to get gas on the way to work and I came *this close* to being in an accident. The gas station was very crowded (not surprising--they were 16 cents a gallon cheaper than the other nearby station) and I had to wait in a bit of a line. The car in front of me finished filling up and started to back up so he could get around the car in front of him. I looked in my rear view, saw nothing but grey skies, and started to back up to give him room. Suddenly there was a honking horn, I hit my brakes and looked around--and realized that those "grey skies" were actually a big SUV exactly the color of the overcast sky parked perpendicular to the rear of my car. Um, the overcast sky wasn't parked, the SUV was. Thank goodness I didn't hit it, and the driver was very understanding when I explained why I hadn't seen her--she even laughed a bit.

WARNING: SURVIVOR SPOILER--IF YOU TIVOED IT, DON'T READ THIS PARAGRAPH. Last night on Survivor, Erik did the stupidest thing possible. He won immunity, and GAVE IT AWAY. Yes. That is what he did. The girls all told him if he "saved" Natalie by giving her the necklace, then they would take it as a sign of "good faith" and vote off Parvati. When he asked why they couldn't vote for Parvati without him giving up immunity, Ceri said that she couldn't trust him, and "saving" Natalie would restore her faith in him. And apparently he bought it, because at Tribal Council he handed the necklace to her. And what really made it stupid was *at no time had anyone suggested voting off Natalie.* Why would he need to "save" her when as far as Erik knew, only Amanda and Parvati were in any danger of being voted off? When Erik went to cast his vote, James (in the jury) leaned over to Ozzy and said, "I just lost my reign as dumbest Survivor ever!"

OMG. There is a MOTH in here. A MOTH in the room with all my yarns and fibers. I've tried swatting it but I keep missing. . . and where there is one, there are bound to be more. . . death to moths!!!

Speaking of fibers, I need to take pictures of the fiber I bought in Arizona. And I need to finish spinning either the ivy green that is on the travel wheel or the emerald green that is on the traditional wheel so I can get started on the new shtuff.

Survivor is almost over!

Tonight is the last "normal" Survivor episode of the season. The finale is on Sunday. It went by so fast! Still rooting for Natalie, although I don't really think she will win. But what if its Cerie? She's been so annoying, I'd hate for her to win. And too bad about James getting pulled last week.

Good news! They are going to remove the little wall between my cubicle and the empty one on the right so that I will have a double-space. Not quite as good as an office, but definitely a major improvement. I feel much, much better about it all. The problem of the tiny cubicle was acknowledged and resolved; I don't feel so much like a second-class citizen.

Big Sis & I are definitely going to the Chocolate Festival this weekend. I must remember to bring my camera. On Sunday Ralph is going to the Renaissance Faire, but I chose to stay home. I'd like to go, but that's my only free day and I need to run some errands: buy some new work shoes, do some laundry, get the vacuuming done, and of course the obligatory run to Borders before my coupon expires.

The first lily of the season has bloomed in our pond. Ralph took this picture yesterday. Didn't it come out nicely? I love the pink blush on the blossom.

Well, I better start getting ready for work.

Long dull day

Nothing exciting today. Work was slow. We lost another fish :-( I was surprised by that, as they had all looked so healthy; however, I think he may have been dead for a while as he was pretty gross when I pulled him out. He was inside one of the "hidey holes" we have in the pond so he could easily have been overlooked.

Today's picture is of Zoe, taken at our camp in Arizona. Actually, it's in the trailer. That whitish stuff on her face is dirt--she had stuck her entire snoot into some sort of animal burrow. Notice how the dust goes all the way up to her eyes! Hali was the same way. They sure had fun, even if they never even came close to catching anything.

My goodness--they live to tell the tale.

I am astounded. Except for the two that died yesterday, all of the goldfish in the pond are alive, swimming around, and not a trace of ich. It's like nothing was ever wrong. Incredible! I thought for sure we'd lose virtually all of them. What a relief!!

First day at the Ontario office today. It really wasn't too bad. Everyone is friendly and I was able to get my work done, although it would have been nice to have a little more space when I reviewed contracts. When you have 100 sheets of legal-sized paper that gets sorted into four piles it kinda takes up a lot of room. The shoebox next to mine is currently unoccupied, and Patrick is going to see if I can use that one for some of my intrays & racks. That would be a big help.

Ralph made a yummy dinner tonight: grilled tilapia with lemon-garlic butter, baked sweet potato and a nice big salad. He also grilled some steak for tomorrow's lunch sandwiches, and we had a little bit of that with the meal. Oreos for dessert, which the dogs appreciate because I only like the cookie part and they got the filling. Don't give me that look; I only had two cookies so there was just a bit of filling for the girls. I know that dogs shouldn't be eating what is essentially sugar & lard, but I don't think the filling from one cookie each is going to do them much harm :-)

Most of the fish are recovering!!

We lost the two biggest goldfish, but the others seem to be recovering. We added all kinds of things to the water: a neutralizer, salt, stress medication, ich medication and most of the fish are starting to swim around. Some of them look almost normal, and one of them was even feeding on the algae in the pond. I'm sorry for the two that didn't make it, but am relieved that it appears most of the others will live. There's only one right now that I am a bit worried about.

Oh, our poor fish!!!

Ralph put the hose in the pond to top it off--and then forgot about it. For a day. All of our fish are practically catatonic & covered in ich. We added medicines and chemical neutralizers to the water; all we can do now is hope for the best. There are two (out of sixteen) that I think might survive but I dunno. . . .

Just a bit on the wedding

I'm sure Beth willl post a lot about the wedding, so I'll only put a little bit here. Everything was very nice, I thought. The arboretum is a lovely place, perfect for a wedding. The area where the guests sat was a big arbor covered with wisteria (not in bloom, but still looking fabulous with the green leaves everywhere). No glitches at all; didn't drop the ring, no histrionics, no rips to dresses. The attire was fairly casual; the groom & groomsmen wore simple short sleeved black button-up tops with black slacks, and the bridesmaids wore black strapless dresses suitable for a semi-casual party or going out to a nightclub--definitely something they can wear again.

The reception was held in the arboretum as well, merely yards away from where the ceremony was held. The food was simple yet tasty: deviled eggs, a cheese platter with crackers, and a veggie tray for "nibblies" and then pasta salad, fruit, a relish tray, and sandwich fixin's for the main nosh along with cold sodas and bottled waters. The wedding cake had a turquoise frosting with sort of a pearl powder to give it irridescense which I think I've misspelled, and the groom's cake was chocolate with a big starfish on top and anchors, sailboats, etc. around the edge. The Boy told my dad it was in honor of all the good times the two of them had had together on Dad's boat when The Boy was a kid, and gave Dad the first slice.

We decided that rather get them a big gift, we'd buy several of the little things on their wishlist. So, we got them silicon potholders & a terra cotta garlic baker (from us), a broom with a cheetah pattern on the handle (from the cats) and a wall-mount stainless steel paper towel holder (from the dogs). I know that doesn't sound like much, but the place where they were registered was a bit expensive & I think that the items combined made a pretty decent gift. AND they were all things on the registry list so I think they'll be appreciated.

I can't believe how few pictures we took! Not one photo of my Older Older Brother or my Younger Older Brother, only one kinda blurry photo of Big Sis & F, one shot of Dad & J, and a bunch of the wedding that didn't really come out. Ralph did get this good video though:

I'll end with the few family shots that we actually managed to take:

First dance for the bride & groom

From left to right: Dad, J, and BM (grandfather of the groom)

Parents of the groom: Big Sis & F

Ralph & me in our matching utilikilts.

Nieces ST (background) and KT being silly. Love the look on KT's face!