Small milestones...

After several hours of intermittent hacking about, I have approximately half of my next homework assignment working. I'm hoping to make that 2/3 before bed, at least.

Here we have a photo of My Own Starry Night, reclining in the winter sunshine, as complete as it seems to want to be, for now:



I still think it needs more quilting, but I haven't got the skills to go with my ideas yet, so we're going to call it "done for now" and claim to have finished a quilt. I have to, because it's been stalling some other as-yet-unfinished ones.

Here we have the 2nd flip-top mittens:



Which have been done for a while but not photographed. This was a "kit" for which I threw out the pattern part and used the yummy yarn. The yarn is a handpainted silk from Sweaterkits, and almost matches the handpainted silk in the sweaterkits toque for which I did follow the pattern. I decided to partly re-engineer and partly improvise the flip-top pattern based on the one from "Not Just MORE Socks" that I used for Adam's Jitterbug flip-tops. It's not great - the base of my pinky is occasionally exposed - but it's close enough that I don't so much feel like pulling it out as doing something better next time.

And, the current two socks in progress:



I suppose you can argue that socks in progress do not count as milestones, but I put the qualifer SMALL in the title - getting the first sock of a pair done is a small milestone, as is getting the heel of a new sock turned via a new method I just tried for the first time (well, second, but first time successfully). I've decided the red sock is just the Red Alligator sock, because I didn't want Angry socks - my feet would probably not be happy if their socks were angry. The other one is a Straight Up Sock, something I started because the stitch pattern on the Red Alligator needs more concentration than I have when knitting while doing other things, but a Straight Up Sock can fill in as I can ALMOST do plain stockinette stitch without looking. Or when I'm tired. This will be Adam's next one and he doesn't mind at all that the sock seems to have a bit more pink in it than the ball of yarn appeared to at first.

I think I will stick to this method of having at least one challenging project and one more basic one on the go - it suits my can't-sit-still fidgetiness but also suits those times when I sometimes can't coordinate anything slightly complex while fidgeting.

Mom, I'll start you one as soon as the Alligators are done.

Sinking Feeling....

This little gizmo:



Is a piece of my kitchen faucet assembly. This little gizmo has A Lifetime Guarantee.

Contrary to what the naive might think, a Lifetime Guarantee is no guarantee that this little gizmo will function as specified for a lifetime - be it yours, mine, or its own. What "Lifetime Guarantee" means is that when this little gizmo spectacularly malfunctions, spraying water all over the inside of the kitchen cabinets, turning the kitchen garbage into a soggy compost bomb and the paper recycling into papier mache, pouring water out of the cabinets all over the hardwood, and leaving a sleepy coffee-deprived homeowner with surprisingly wet feet for being indoors on a dry day, you get a new one for free.

Claiming your new little gizmo has some prerequisites. First you have to turn off the water supply, and since you're crawling around in a half-inch of water in the kitchen cabinet anyway, you might as well mop up too. Then you have to find the malfunctioning part in the tangle of tubing and piping, a process which involves spraying more water all over to identify where the water is coming from, then turning the water supply back off again. Next step: figure out how to disconnect it. The disconnection process will be made more complicated by the fact that the gizmo appears to have been attached with a wrench, judging by the tool marks all over it despite the bright orange sticker on it that says "Hand Tighten Only" (possibly a cause of the failure, as the gizmo appears to have exploded along a spiral fracture line suspiciously following the tool marks). The disconnection will also involve skinned and bruised knuckles as it is wedged into THE most contorted position amongst the other pipes and tubes, and of course we must also endure the minor head injury that seems almost mandatory when any under-sink plumbing ventures occur.

Then, you're nearly home free. The last part of the Lifetime Guarantee replacement process is to find the plumbing supply place that has one in stock. In a fit of rational smartness, I got on the net and the phone and called before driving all over town (hint: Home Depot doesn't seem to carry this manufacturer!), and only had to go a few kilometres to the next-to-nearest Home Hardware. Today we love the GlenBriar Plumbing Showcase, the nice parts folks had even set the replacement aside for me after my call, and wandered out into the aisles to meet me when they noted a soggy perplexed woman with the gizmo in hand checking the shelves for similar looking parts.

From there, it was back home, and repeat the previous paragraphs all in reverse (minus the mopping up as I was not dumb enough to turn the water back on before reconnecting everything).

And this, dear reader, is why none of programming homework, quilting, knitting, or my taxes have yet been done today.

Mostly functional, again.

So after disassembling the computer case and poking every which way at my flakey Bluetooth, I relocated the CD I need and installed the right driver. Window says it doesn't need custom BT software drivers - but it does. My gadgets are now all conversing with the mothership, after an additional side-track into reinstalling the Palm software as well.

So, here's what my cat looks like lately:

And the back of him:

He's so cold with all that fur gone, that he's taken to sitting under my halogen desk lamp. Which I had to replace, as something shorted out my 12-year-old one that I loved.

But, at least he's continuing to eat and seems happy with the food tube removed.

In other adventures, what should arrive this past Monday but my shipment of Lorna's Laces from an Ebay-enabled dealer (that sounds so illicit!)

Guess which one is for socks for Mom? I don't think I meant to do that with the rest of the colours (the dark earthy tones) but they just happened that way.

And lest anyone think I'm just hoarding yarn, I AM being productive to merit my stashbuilding. This sock:

which some of you met last Saturday has been ripped out and re-started since that photo, and is a few ribbed rows away from done and will probably be finished tonight. I think I'm going to call these the Angry Alligator socks. The 12x8 stitch pattern, named "Small Capitals" in the stitch dictionary, looks more to me like the bumpy scales of some large reptile. I'm trusting since the bumps are on the outside I'll still be able to wear them. I deviated from the instructions and made the heel back in the same pattern, so they may only be usable as clog socks - which is fine, as I think the red/purple variegated yarn will go with my red-purple Naots or purple Keen clogs. I can't wait for this weather to get over with it so I can wear clogs again.

As the moment, the elements are doing their best to encase the condo in pebbly ice.

Please stand by, blog is experiencing technical difficulties....

The phone with the camera still won't talk to the computer. Actually, I think it's the computer's fault. Someone, send me a Mac. Or something. My internal Bluetooth is absent, an external one finds devices but can't talk to any of them, and the wire connection tells me there's a modem attached but can't recognize the phone. And I'm done fighting with it for tonight.

Anyway - two more socks are on the go, the complicated red one with the 12-stitch-by-8-row patter and a "plain" one in a fuzzy yarn that has one blue ply and one variegated ply - kinda cool. On the quilt front, "My Own Starry Night" gave me some grief when I tried to add more quilting - 20 minutes to do two lines, and 3 hours to rip it out again. It's now staring me down from the loft banister again. But it's got a binding and has survived a washing, so I suppose I can qualify it as a "finished" quilt even if it seems under quilted.

Maui is still increasingly naked. Dr. Bonnie took out his feeding tube because we got him eating, sort-of. I broke down and bought him "purple food" - Whiskas from the supermarket. It's what his old lady fed him, all along, and what we took him off of thinking it was causing his "food allergy" and fur loss. But after 6 weeks + of tube feeding exclusively veterinary prescription food, the fur loss is worse than ever, so we can't blame the purple food. So I dished him up some purple food, and he ate for the first time in almost a month. Yeah, sure - he's eating the feline equivalent of a diet of Twinkies, but he's eating. And he's happier without the tube, though it remains to be seen if he grows his fur back now.

Bit of a fumble, but nice recovery.

In some situations, customer care is everything.

Now, for those folks who work hard in my probably-too-often-frequented local dining establishments, I have nothing but respect. I don't think I've ever been nasty to a food service worker, even a bad one. I'm happy that I've never had to do such a job - not that I don't value it, but I think I'd be terrible at it and I've worked hard to cultivate a skill base that keeps me employed elsewhere. I really appreciate the folks who do such a job as waiting tables, and extra props to the ones who can make your average diner feel like their favourite guest of the day. It's a skill and it takes work. I try to tip well by default, cutting it only if there was a problem.

That said, I can be really put out by a bad customer service experience, particularly when it occurs during what should have been the highlight of my day. Such a thing happened on Valentine's Day this year. We visited a new, highly-hyped local upscale place, and suffered some - let's call it "really strange" treatment from our table server. Strange in that she wasn't unpleasant or rude, but seemed to just have completely missed the point of the leisurely-fine-dining restaurant she was working in, and wound up effectively shooing us out the door before we were half-done, quite pleasantly, mind you. The spousal euphemism and I were just standing there in the snow wondering what exactly happened to our special dinner out.

We stewed about this for some hours after we were home, at which point I puzzled out that we'd really been treated poorly, though with a smile. We were so stunned it hadn't sunk in right away.

So, I wrote a letter. I don't need to share the exact letter or tedious details of all that happened, but I addressed it to the managers/owners and clearly explained what happened and why we were offended. I didn't insult anyone and I didn't ask that anyone be taken to task, but let him know what might prompt us to NOT return and that perhaps it should be diplomatically and professionally discussed with his staff.

Today, the spouse gave me a heads up that said restaurant owner left me a message on the home machine, so I called him back from work, after lunch and before the dinner rush.

This gentleman was nothing but class. He THANKED me for my complaint. While stating that there was no excuse for the treatment, he did explain that he had some new and some temporary staff all on hand for Valentine's day and he obviously hadn't made the lay of the land clear to them, and he apologized for that. This is class from a manager, too - no blame, not stooping so low as to appease a customer with graphic descriptions of sanctions against his team, he completely owned the situation. I'm sure it will be discussed with someone, but I hope it's done in the way I intended (my letter actually was very constructive) and used as a learning task for the staff. I think from talking to him it will be.

On top of it all, he finished the call by telling me to watch my mail for the gift certificate he would be forwarding so we could give his establishment another shot.

Oh, and before I forget to mention - customer service fumble aside, the food was really very good, so I'm happy to take him up on his hospitality. Check this out if you're looking for special-occasion dining in K-W: Boa Nova Rodizio Grillhouse

Bad techie, work not for blogging....

So, by way of excuse, it was DEAD SLOW at work today. The US has their "President's Day" holiday and as 90% of our activity is generated by US customers - they weren't there. We were, and we were bored.

I sheepishly admit to finding other ways to occupy myself while waiting for an account executive and a product manager to coordinate a meeting, besides updating all my open calls to say "customer was away, left another voicemail".

About 3 intermittent hours of my day were spent catching up on The Yarn Harlot's blog archives. I admit it, I'm hooked on a knitting blog. I can't really describe the phenomenon, but this blog is so popular it crashes servers (and leaves thousands of knitters twitching when it does). Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is a prodigious knitter, but also a very talented writer and humourist, and there's more than a bit of wry social commentary in there. I would love to meet her someday, I may have to join the local knitting guild in hopes that they get her to repeat her visit from earlier this year.

To my credit, my digression into wooly blogs kept me from getting roped into the intense and animated discussions going on around me on the topic of Britney Spears latest hair and bodyart choices. NOBODY had enough to occupy them today.

I came home to find the object of my adoration being even more adorable in the kitchen, having IM'd me earlier to say dinner was on for 6. Unfortunately, I also found the sick cat missing even more fur than he had been missing when I left him. Yes, Maui, though slowly recovering a tiny bit of weight, his spirits and a bit more of his freaked-out attitude, has developed an aversion to his own fur and is pulling it out and leaving it in heaps all over the condo. He's at least not ripping his skin raw as well, as far as we can find, but he's looking awfully mangey. I'd post pictures but I had to rebuild the Windows box last week and it's not set up to talk to the camera phone again yet. Maybe by the time I do that, I'll have a completely naked cat.

It is an interesting property of Siamese that the darker fur grows where they're cold. Well, if he strips all his fur off, his skin is pink - then it turns this blue-black colour after a while. I thought the first bit was a bruise, but the skin turns dark where it's cold, too, apparently.

Off for some homemade lasagna now! I may work on the picture upload thing if I can get the last 1/3 of my computer assignment done.

Planetary Conjunction

Syzygy is, I think, a really cool and under-publicized word.

I was able to use it today not only in a sentence but a short essay. It was my entry for a contest I hope to win.

I won't know for a month and I'm not telling any more that that, because it's a members-only contest, so it either won't do you any good, or if you're a member too, I don't want you stealing my cool word.

Wikepedia has a page discussing the etymology of syzygy.

Kindred and Sisterhood....

Don't read my blog today, I'm a Valentine humbug. Alison, did you get your dead rat?

Go read YarnHarlot's Feb 14 post instead - she ROCKS. I have nothing to add to that amazing essay on real, whole-wheat, LOVE with teeth.

Happy Heart day, now somebody go clean a bathroom!

Stash moratorium may fail quickly....

So at the moment, a second pair of flip-top mittens have been finished, and I was staring at my yarn bin wondering what to do next, having nothing on needles for the first time since October.


As Yarn Ho stashes go, this one isn't bad (yet). My fabric stash is still bigger, volume-wise and probably square-footage-of-fabric wise. And both still fit in one closet. I'm a long way from SABLE yet (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy - got that one from YarnHarlot though I don't know if she coined it). BUT, I had decided in the name of economy and the fact that I can only make one sock every couple of weeks or so, to back off on yarn shopping.


But then.... I was checking out Blue Moon to see if they had posted about mailing the first installment of my Rockin' Sock Club. And I spotted this yarn.

(I admit to borrowing the pic, but I've linked to them by way of credit!)

Now, normally, browns aren't my colour. But this colourway is variegated with chocolate, tan, cream... and a bright blue. Chocolate, tan and cream like the shading on a Siamese cat. And blue, like bright blue Siamese eyes. The name of this feline colourway?

.... get this .....

Lucy.

They made a yarn the colour of Siamese cats, and named it Lucy. All together now: "Awwwwwww!"

I may just have to get me some of that.

(For the one or two of you who may be reading and don't know, my first two Siamese were named Lenny and Lucy, and both died in 2003).

Email post testing

Blogger has this function, supposedly, where you can email in a post.

This might be handy for travel. or quick updates from someone else's
B-Berry (one of the few gadgets I am actively avoiding getting).

This is a test message, from a very slow workday - I'm on one of those
remote connections to a user system that takes 30 seconds to refresh each
keyclick.

Continuing Chemo Cat, and This Is Not A Sock.

Well, of all the many things I really wanted to accomplish this weekend, I managed these:

Flip-top mittens for the SO made from that yummy Colinette Jitterbug yarn. They look a bit wonky either when not on a hand or on my too-small one, but they mostly fit Adam. The pic was just before I sewed on the buttons and button loops to hold the tops back.

My other accomplishment.. well, two actually, including the lasagna that's getting ready for dinner .. was keeping Maui fed through another setback.

My poor mangled cat is a chemical cocktail right now. Right around the time of his first chemo dose a couple of weeks ago, he had some very disturbed intestines, so to speak, so he was taken OFF the Leukeran and put on metronidazole for 8 days and fenbendazole for 6 - antibiotics and anti-parasitics respectively, thinking that his problem was possibly infection picked up or agitated out by the surgery.

Now, 3 days after finishing that course, we were back on the Leukeran, and found Friday night that he has an infection around the insertion of his feeding tube. Some nasty, smelly muck had his tube, his remaining fur, and his collar all glued together.

So, another call to the vet and some after-hours pick up of emergency antibiotics, and we've stepped up the saline soaks of his insertion site. The poor guy has lost his appetite again so we're back to using the tube, and all he wants to do is sleep. And bless his fuzzy little butt, he's being really good about all the abuse - he's pretty tolerant of wet compresses being smeared all over him and he's even purring and crawling into bed - which he's never really done - to stay warm and comfy.

So, the poor guy now has 3 or 4 pills a day instead of 2 or 3, adding azithromycin into his mix. But, hopefully this is a temporary setback and I'll soon be able to report some weight gain (him, not me).

Short blurbs....

The strep is in retreat....
The sunset sock is found (was hiding out in a pair of jammies)...
I've developed a thing for fuschia and lime green. You should see my toenails.

I do not need more yarn.
I have much yarn already.
I will not buy more yarn.
I will not buy more yarn.
I will not buy more yarn.
(Bart Simpson as a knitter).

However, if anyone wanted to BUY me yarn...

I've been drooling at these web sites. Lorna's Laces and Colinette.

More yarn projects later. I'm finished the fingerless-glove part of a convertible mitten for the spousal entity. Colinette Jitterbug Jewel colour. Yummy.

Strep and other nastiness...

So, this one'll be short because typing is painful.

My annual strep event is a bit early this year - actually, I guess the really bad ones are happening on a 10-month cycle or so, with little one-day bouts of unexplained fevers in between.

If you read my sister's LJ, there's a strange parallelism going on here.

So, THIS time - I had a 39.5 degree fever this morning, brought down to 38.5 by Advil, and I haven't been able to swallow anything but liquids. The penicillin I started this afternoon was a challenge.

I am ALSO going for an ECG. My doc didn't seem to concerned, but my heartbeat is all out of whack. I don't know whether she really wasn't concerned, or didn't want to alarm me. I have, as long as I can remember, noted that when I really exert myself - I mean REALLY, like biking up the Escarpment in one press - that my heart will occasionally skip a beat then follow the skip with a big, floppy-feeling WHUMP. I've mentioned this to past docs and they've all said it's not unusual, if it's infrequent and just once, and if I don't feel ill or dizzy. And it usually is infrequent - it'll happen once in a blue moon, always after exertion or maybe a really hot hot tub.

But with this bout of strep, it was happening constantly all night long last night. It lessened slightly today- and of course wouldn't happen at all when my doc was actually listening - but it's back now. So ECG tomorrow, I guess.

In better Maui-news, not only has the boy been eating on his own - including cleaning up some, ahem, recycled food the Sprout! deposited around today, but he's decided to be a purry lap cat. Now, that IS weird. Since we got him he's seemed quite uninterested in us, though he likes strangers. The spousal unit pragmatically pointed out that he's probably enjoying my 39 degree fever. But it's nice, I'll take it.

At least I got an off-work note for the rest of the week. I'm going for a warm bath and off to bed, now.

Greeny-Blue Blog Sock, and Maui status

So, well, sock #7 (4a) and I have resolved our differences, mostly, and it's almost done.

I've actually temporarily tucked it away to rest on a spare circular needle, while I get its mate started. This is the largest sock yet in terms of foot length, as Adam's previous pairs are a bit snug. But I was concerned, as this was a toe-up species, that I might not know where to stop and might not have enough yarn for its mate.

As for the cat status - slow progress is being made. We've got him up to about 48 mls ( a FULL 10 ml syringe is 12 mls) a feeding in his tube - AND - he's started slurping up the contents of the refill bowl himself, but doesn't have a lot. He's busy having hairball issues too, as he has another large naked patch he's cleared off his side and back under the harness that was holding his tube on - so I changed it to just a collar with the tube wrapped to it. He had a bit of a downturn into withdrawn, sullen hiding Friday and I'm not sure if that was the hairballs (he ejected quite the volume of them...) or starting his meds, but he seems to be a bit up again today.

Right now he's supervising my computer time from a heap of old towels in my closet opening (they're intended for cheap, pet-quilt batting, so I might as well let him warm up on them).

Gotta run - dinner's on.

Wooly woes and wows....

So, the WOE part is, MY WASHING MACHINE ATE ONE OF THE SUNSET SOCKS!!!! Auurgh!

3 weeks to make socks, I wear them twice, and then one has wandered off into that alternate dimension where socks go to be reincarnated as tangled wire hangers in the closet. I've checked all the other laundry done around that time - it doesn't seem to be hiding in a pillowcase or gym shirt. I'm not even going to check the closet - because I can't knit hanger wire. There's no point.

The wooly WOW is probably an epiphany only to me, not anyone actually experienced with yarn. So far, the knitting has been with the not-cheap-but-not-crazy-priced Regia sock yarn - the self-patterning type. It's 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon. At this exact moment, though, I'm knitting up a mitten (or, well, so far it's a cuff) with a 100% superwash Colinette Jitterbug yarn. I think it was a $23 hank of yarn. WOW is it nice to work with. It's moving smoothly, my hands are more relaxed, it's "springier" - came from bouncy sheep, I guess. I must admit, during my previous knitting adventures back in university, yarn was yarn. As I'm re-learning the craft, I have of course come across all kinds of info on different yarns, but it hadn't quite sunk in like this before.

I can understand now why I've read how some knitters hate cotton yarn - nice as the finished garment might be, it's stiff and inelastic and the actual task of knitting will be more strain.

Hopefully, these mitts will be as nice to wear as to knit.

In an unrelated post-script, Maui-cat while not having regained any substantial body mass, is both tolerating his tube feeding well, AND having a munch at kibbles on his own now. Chemo pills and pred start tomorrow.

The Beginning Adventures of Chemo Cat

So, Maui and I have a diagnosis. My him-cat has a low-grade form of lymphoma. I cannot recall Dr. Bonnie's specific term, but she had explained it as a possibility when we did all our biopsies.

At least there is an answer. And despite the dire term "lymphoma" (yes, cancer.... again!) it is actually something manageable in a way that can make him better and keep him healthy for years. Basically, he's on chemotherapy in perpetuity.

Prednisone once a day, then every third day we add a leukeran. Dr. Bonnie herself says she's had cats live 2-4 years and has seen many last longer. I guess it just keeps the crazy cell growth in check.

So, my cat is still a pathetic scrawny little thing with a tube in his neck just now, but we have a reason, and we have hope. He starts the chemo Friday and we're going to do less tube-feeding (by a tiny bit) than we might have in hopes that the combination of less food and prednisone will get him eating on his own again.

And so we go!

Maui update...

Well, he's probably sore and dopey, but Maui's OK, so I get my kitty back this time.

Vet says there were no significant visual findings. Slightly enlarged lymph nodes which may or may not mean anything.

We're still waiting on biopsy results on every little bit of him that was biopsied. And he has a feeding tube now so we can fatten him up again whether he thinks he wants to eat or not.

He's staying with the doc for another day then we get him home tomorrow.

In other news (though most of you readers are family who tell me these things), sadly, my eldest uncle passed away this morning. While not a surprise, given that he had contracted pneumonia and had compromised lungs from long-ago industrial damage, it is nonetheless very sad. He was a kind and quiet, ubiquitous presence during my childhood and teen weekends at the grandfolk's cottage, quietly making sure things worked and kids didn't drown or break their heads or such while his wife and mother-in-law frantically tried to feed everyone and clean everything.

Family gossip has had us worried several times in the past year that he was on his way. Fortunately Adam and I got a visit in the past summer. Uncle was not as addled as the women around him were trying to make out, or at least not all the time, and still had his sense of humour. As we finished dinner, he calmly looked down at dessert bowl he had just emptied, and slyly and quietly said " I think I'll have some ice cream now".

Adam didn't get the best portrait he's ever taken, but he did get a snap or two for the family gallery (you know where that is if you're anyone concerned).

Nailbiting....

Maui cat is in surgery. We ran out of non-invasive options to diagnose his dramatic weight loss, and at a check-up last night he was down to 6lbs, 7 oz (from being over 11 lbs early last year).

Of course my worry is that it's something like Lenny had - extensive, advanced abdominal cancer. Lenny was not woken up from surgery once that was found. I don't have strong clinical grounds to suspect that - Maui is still more alert and active than Lenny was, he is not exhibiting any acute pain, there's no fluid buildup like we had been finding. But there's no innocuous explanation yet either.

Dr. Bonnie assures me that most "exploratory surgeries" show nothing on a gross level, and a significant portion of the rest reveal something fixable. The point of the exploratory is to allow extensive biopsy. Maui will also get a feeding tube for a while (assuming he pulls through) because his eating is intermittent - he just seems to not want to bother with food for extended periods, then he eats almost normally, but he's finicky.

Will update when I know more.

Sock in a Rut

So, sock #7 has been half done, pulled out, nearly done and discovered to be much too tight, pulled out, and given up on.

In the interim, I made a hat - twice - and pulled it all out - twice. I apparently have not yet figured out how to translate the gauge of a swatch, which I got right, into the gauge of a two-yarn knit-in-the-round, accessory, which was different by 1.5 stitches per inch.

The first two rows of the hat are now re-started on a needle size two larger, after more swatching and some math.

Now I'm back to the sock. I've decided since I cannot seem to get past the heel, I'll start at the toe for this one. Yet another learning experience, but I've got it started again.

I love the web. If you can't find exactly what you want, you can find enough to build it. After giving up on provisional cast-ons because I couldn't crochet an even chain, Knitty.com got me to two pages that I managed to hybridize. I first found this: TipTop Toes, and the figure-8 toe seemed a good idea, but it turned out gappy. Then I dug up the Magic Cast On, which, in its text, claims to address the gappy fig-8 toe issue. However, once cast-on, I couldn't manage to start the rounds on 4 dpns.

So I somehow hybridized the two. I used the magic cast-on, which seems to be a hybrid itself of the long-tailed and figure 8 cast-ons, but with this mod: I cast on to a larger, circular needle, then slid the stitches of Judy Becker's needle #2 onto the cable, and knit straight across needle #1 with my first, smaller, dpn. I then pulled the circular all the way through so the stitches originally on #2 were pushed onto #1, and then I knit across those with the 2nd dpn. This left me with my toe started as for Wendy Johnson's figure 8 toe, but much tighter in the cast-on rows, but not so tight I couldn't work them.

I'm guessing the Magic Toe is alot easier for one accustomed to and intending to work on two circulars, but given the investment I've recently made in both yarn and all kinds of sizes of dpns, spending $30 per pair on paired circulars will have to wait paycheque or two. Besides, I need lots more practice at the basics, too.

So, stay tuned - I'll see if I can get this sock "toe up" past the heel, then we'll be rolling. I may return to the hat, too, as it goes alot faster than the sock. More stitches per round but lots fewer rounds.

Sock-pic-free blog

The socks have slowed a bit, due to the holidays and the fact that my anxiety over the other things I'm neglecting has picked up. I DID finish the sunset-coloured mate to the sock in the last post, and having re-started Adam's next sock AGAIN - I'm now almost done the leg and am trying to find a set of GOOD (as in, comprehensible to me) instructions for an alternate heel.

I've finished one of the two overdue baby quilts, which ended up being an Xmas present for the now 8-months-old neice. The one for my friends now-6-month-old preemie is still frustrating me. I think I chose the wrong mix of fabrics and thread, as I can't seem to get the free-motioning really going - thread keeps breaking despite all the tuning I'm trying to do.

I'm a month past my start date for my AthabascaU correspondence course, and while I've done some reading and the mandatory "say hello on the class chat room" post, that's about it. I printed the exercise sheet for unit 1, I suppose.

Neither my "day" job nor the gym job (occasional aerobics instructor, if you didn't know that)takes a holiday break, so I've been at both of those so far today.

I'd really rather be knitting.

Blog sock at sunset

Here is sock #5. It's mate, #6, as well as #7, are on the needles now, though #7 is giving me no end of trouble getting started and I keep re-starting it.

Things I have learned so far, as a sock newbie:
1. "Cast on Loosely" is very important. Use needles a size or two larger than called for to cast on, or you'll have a perfectly fit sock with an opening too tight for a foot to go through.
2. Rib tightly. Use needles a size or two SMALLER than the pattern to k1, p1 rib stitch the cuff. Unless you want a slouchy sock, which is not always a good thing.
3. If I drop a stitch in the first 3 rows of ribbing, it's not worth the tangling and eyestrain to try and fix it - start over. It seems after the first three rows, me and my crochet hook can usually sort it out.
3. a) A crochet hook or two are vital to knitting - picking up stitches is much easier with them.

Things I still need to figure out:
1. A better heel than the one in the pattern I have. Don't like the flap-and-turn one, it's hard to pick up the right number of stitches exactly evenly or turn with completely neat stitches.

2. How to make a Kitchener graft not look lumpy.

3. Lots more pattern stitch variations.

In non-sock news of late, I'm at the end of my second day off sick. Or, almost two full days - I made it to work yesterday but was on a fast downhill slide so came home mid-morning. Today, I had to teach at the gym in the morning, but came home and took my aches and slight fever back to bed. I'm up again with a mug of neo citran about to go out to an appointment I had (long booked, before I got sick) but after a bout of sweats and chills after taking an Advil, the fever seems down. I'll see how I feel in an hour as to whether or not I go to Yoga.

Blog Sock: The Blues

Well, here we are on pair number 2. These will be Adam's once I'm done. The first one is a near fit - he thinks it is a tiny bit short in the foot. So I'm torn. Do I make the second one a half-inch longer, which offends my sense of symmetry, or keep it the same length and have his toes wear through both of them? Decisions, decisions....

Blog Sock the Finale: My First Socks

So I've learned a bit - namely that I need to learn more, but I have a wearable, if not svelte, pair of socks. The ribbing at the top is useless - waaaay too loose, makes it look like they have scalloped edges instead of cuffs. I suppose I could pretend I meant to do that, but that's kinda silly on a brown-and-blue striped boot sock kind of thing.

I've got the cuff on my next pair started and it's going much better already. They're a blue tiger-stripey pattern and will be for the Spousal Unit.

Blog Sock II: The Left Foot

Yay! I made this.

Now the trick is getting the one for the other foot to match. More to follow....

High Irony in the IT world....

OK, so... I live my daily life based on a PDA. My cel phone knows who my friends are (and even tries to phone all by itself - sorry Sissy if I woke you up). My work environment includes integrated email and calendaring to plan all of my daily tasks down to the minute, and what my company DOES is all about digital knowledge, planning, scheduling and integration.

So today, coincident with very important European diplomats being let loose in our building, the management swag fairies came bouncing by with goodies for everyone.

A very nicely produced 2007 day planner. Yep. The dead tree variety.

This is one of those moments where I look around for the hidden camera.

Blog Sock...

So, long time no blog again.

Had a whirlwind week. Last week - er, about this time - we got word that the spousal euphemism's remaining grandparent, Bubbi, had begun a hunger strike, and decided she was done with it all, somewhere past 92 years of age. She passed away on Tuesday evening, with children and grandchildren at her side or nearby.

This has taken it's toll this week, on some folks near and dear and many more who are more distant to me. Not really my place to discuss what pertains to most of those others, but safe to say it's one of those occasions that, no matter how close or not to the actual deceased, gives you cause to see some interesting human interactions. Also safe to say, no matter what your involvement, it's kinda draining.

So, after being off work Thursday, with notice, and Friday, on less notice, I've spent Saturday dealing with a car stereo installation that took about 4 hours instead of one, and part of today catching up on work I didn't do Thursday and Friday.

In between the chores, I've gotten myself to the top of the heel on the very first sock I've ever knit.

For some reason, after buying my latest favourite sweater - twice, in case I wear out the first one - this fall, I decided I wanted to learn to knit again. The motivation for that was being able to reproduce this cool sweater, in a colour I like better, whenever I get around to wearing it (them) out. But I'm not there yet.

So following that, for no reason that I can particularly recall, I decided I wanted to knit socks. Now, I never WAS that skilled a knitter. Stockinette and garter stitch with no embellishments whatsoever were the limit of what I'd ever learned. And I gave up when I realized I really don't like sweaters much, and afghans less. BUT thinketh me, I like socks. I'm constantly buying weird socks and constantly annoyed at how fast they wear out. So, thinketh me, I shall knit socks.

Well, in favour of the idea, a nice sock can be knit with only my two favourite stitches, knit and purl. Generally. NOT in its favour, the idea involves learning to knit "in the round", and small at that. It's generally done using 4 to 5 thin, short little double-pointed needles.

This is a bit more challenging than just two sticks. Imagine trying to tie 100 shoes while holding a hedgehog in both hands. It's not exactly the same because a ball of sock yarn won't pee on you if it's upset, but close.

Anyway, after starting and pulling out my cast-on rows about 10 times and consequently wrecking the first couple metres of a ball of self-patterning sock yarn, the spousal euphemism's mom got me re-started on Friday and we are rolling. I've gotten the knack of keeping my hands working with all the little pokey bits sticking out at all angles rather than sticking in to me. For some reason my ribbing, which should be the tighter part at the top of the sock, is looser than the rest, and I've magically acquired 3 extra stitches by the time I got to the ankle, but I have a tube of yarn and the beginnings of a heel flap.

So, in addition to half a dozen unfinished quilting projects, and I now have the more ambulatory (think portable to boring business meetings, where a sewing machine is not) artsy complement to my textile addiction.

Looking for a 12-step program next... (hello... my name is Johanna and I'm a knitter.. er, quilter... er, knitter...).

Slightly disappointed though generally at peace...

I love this time of year. I like cooler weather, and I like cozy clothes, I even like rain, actually. I like when open windows bring cool, fresh, leafy fall air in but don't freeze the place.

I'm slightly disappointed that I picked up the pager for a sick colleague this weekend. Pager is a mixed blessing. Every time it beeps, I get at least an hour's bonus pay. But, I've just missed a hayride and a corn maze run - it's been beeping through some afternoon birthday plans I would have attended had it been quieter.

But the generally at peace part is overriding the "bummer, no hayride" reaction. In between beeps, I'm puttering around the office cleaning up, and Freecycling stuff. Re-ordering my space when it gets out of hand is kind of a zen exercise, it lowers my stress level immensely (I should do it at work).

I'm talking to a dozing, purring cat, who has just claimed her new "spot" in my re-ordered office. Also good for stress level.

And, since Adam did go to the birthday hay ride, I smoked up the windowsill with a pinch of incense (sorry honey - should be gone by the time you're home). I love my tiny cauldron and real, loose incense - though today's was a bit of an experiment. It was a blend called "Geminii" that I of course had to have a small sample of. Un-burned, it smells like a lovely potpourri, or maybe a seasoning blend - it has lavender and fennel in it, and I think also coriander and a bit of basil. It smells totally different when smoking, though. Oh well. This is why I buy "sample" sizes.

So, now that the beeping HAS wrapped up (for the moment) I'll finish my little tidying-project and maybe go take a walk before joining the birthday party for dinner. You go do the same! Or at least, open a window really wide and take a few deep breaths of Autumn.

Mind the Gap - Aaargh!!!

So, if you know enough to read my blog, you probably know I'm an ersatz aerobics instructor. You may not know that for a year or so now, I've been using an iPod to play my workout music at class, rather than drag around 20 very expensive CDs.

There's a minor problem with this - yes, it really is minor - that's gotten my back up now thanks to some merciless teasing from Apple. You see, an Aerobics CD is mixed to have each song blend seamlessly into the next, with no pauses and exact 32-count phrasing. The minor problem is that if you just digitize the CDs, iTunes (or probably any other software), can't help but put a small gap in each track. This RUINS aerobics music. I'm not kidding. Toss a little hitch into otherwise evenly phrased music, and an entire class of spandex-clad workout maniacs will fall like dominoes. It ain't pretty.

So the solution, which has been satisfying until two days ago, is to rip the entire CD as one long track. That works fine, as long as your CD is exactly as long as your class. This option keeps music seamless, and the limit is just that you can't jump to the next track, go back, skip one, or re-order the tracks. I've been OK with this so far and I've actually gotten pretty good at fast forwarding the exact right amount of seconds if I need to.

So what happened two days ago? Apple Inc's advertising machine ran up, bit me on the ass, and ran away giggling, knowing I had been infected. How? Well, when I loaded iTunes to get my latest podcast episodes, iTunes offered to update itself to the latest new version.

The new version featuring GAPLESS PLAYBACK. Yes, that shiny white one-mouse-button-only interface informed me that the latest step in iEvolution had happened. I could now play my continuous CDs continuously, without sacrificing my track-by-track control!!!!

Well, this seemed to good to be true, but I tried it. I re-ripped one of my workout CDs and gave it a try - YES!!!! iTunes does indeed play the CD with the lovely smooth mixed-in transitions between tracks. No one-extra-beat in the last phrase. (No lawsuits agains aerobics instructors for injuring a whole class).

A few hours later I had most of my Aerobics CDs re-encoded.

Then the bomb dropped. When I moved them to the iPOD, as opposed to iTunes, the GAPS are BACK. Oh, yes... "the gap came back, the very next day, yes the gap came back.....".

It turns out, iTunes, being the "first one's free" gateway product to the ever-addictive iPod, gets new features but they can only be used with the NEW iPod. Er, that would be the NEWEST new iPod, the one Apple released 2 days ago. It's kind of an iPod 5G-and-a-half. iPod video with bigger battery, brightness control, and GAPLESS PLAYBACK.

I only have an iPod photo (4G). Now, it does a great job. It does the same great job it did 3 days ago, and I still have 45 of its 60 GB capacity free. But just like you feel disappointed when the option package for your new car gets 3 improvements the month after you bought it - well, there ya are. Now that I know the holy grail of digitized aerobics music CAN be had, I am both covetous of the new innovation, and quite resentful because really, Apple should be able to release an update for the older iPod to do this.

If I ever meet Steve Jobs, I may hug him but I'll kick him in the shins, too. Just not sure what I'll do first.

Me, Dr. Who, and Arthur Dent...

What do the three people in the title have in common?

Well, OK, YOU may have thought of something weirder, but what I was going for was the not-infrequent cravings for a lovely cup of tea. I've been a tea-fancier in general since I was kid, starting my coffee habit much later.

Lately, I've been aided and abetted shamelessly in feeding my tea addiction by the most adorable little shop down the block from me, Distinctly Tea. Their URL is http://www.distinctlytea.com, share it around, I want their upcoming online launch to succeed so I can get more cool tea stuff close to home.

Distinctly Tea carries several hundred varieties of teas, all of which can be purchased loose in varying quantities. They can stock you up on all kinds of tea brewing paraphernalia, and the staff are walking encyclopediae of tea lore.

In the past year or so I've learned:

That you should never boil water for green, white, or oolong teas - use hot water but below the boil (80-90 degrees C).

That one of my favourite teas, Lapsang Souchong, comes from ONE mountain in China.

"Chai" means "tea" in Hindi and other middle-eastern languages. "Masala Chai" is the proper term for the spiced teas marketed as "chai" in North America

Rooibos is not a tea, per se - it is its own thing, the leaf of a bush from South Africa (as "tea" is the leaf of a bush from the orient).

Longer brewing is not the right way to make stronger tea. Use more tea, infuse for a short time.

That tea in a tea bag from a store shelf is almost intolerably poor quality.

Yes, that's it - I'll admit it, I'm now a tea snob, and I'd probably give the Doctor or Arthur Dent a good run in brewing the perfect cup nowadays.

Check out Distinctly Tea, though. If you'd like any, let me know.

A little bit of "glad"ness in the rain...

I did something yesterday that I used to do frequently in Guelph (when I lived across the road from the Farmer's Market there) but don't have as much opportunity for here.

I bought myself flowers. Gladiolas, to be specific.

I love gladiolas. I have thought they were the brightest, happiest flowers ever, even when I didn't know WHAT they were. For the longest time I couldn't find them, then in Guelph, there was a vendor who always had truckloads of them, mid-July to mid-September. When I could spare the $5, I'd buy a dozen a week, and they'd usually last for two, so I'd rotate them all summer.

I had no idea where I'd picked up this affinity for these flowering bulbs, until a few years ago, a couple years after my grandmother died. I was visiting the ole' family cottage and noted that my aunt who is now its custodian always had them on the table. "They were your grandmother's favourite", she told me. They were often planted around the cottage. Without ever having taken note of that memory consciously, I realized that was where I had often seen them. Childhood summer weekends at Grandma and Grandpa's summer place. Even though many of those days have now faded from memory, I can't help but feel sunshine and a fresh breeze off Lake Erie when there's a bucket of Gladiolas around.

Happy day, yesterday, when I wandered up to St. Jacobs Market, crowded despite the rain, even before 10 am. I picked up some cheese and nice bread, blackberries and a coffee, and on the way out passed a soggy flower vendor's tent - with the gladiolas in those plastic buckets, tucked in the back, $6/dozen.

I don't care if it's rained all weekend, the plumbing in the building is shut down, and we can't wash or cook. I've got two vases full of the happiest flowers ever.

Pluto no more!

My daily dose of learning in recent months has come from Wikipedia, an ersatz attempt to document the entirety of human knowledge and evolve the WWW into some crazy hive-minded meta-brain. It's my off-site storage for all my Trivial Pursuit answers. I love it.

For the last week or so I've been eagerly awaiting the outcome of the proposed redefinition of what comprises a "planet" in the astronomical sense.

I must admit I am quite disappointed with the result. Perhaps this is illogical, out of a need to cling to what "facts" I "know" about the universe, or a gut-level emotional reaction that we have somehow shut some new friends out in the cold. But having it confirmed that Pluto is no longer considered a true planet is giving me an odd pang of grief.

Pluto is still out there, and I'm sure its fans and many researchers will find their admiration and their work undiminished. But I must admit, I am one of the faction who was cheering for the INclusion of not only Pluto but the three to twelve additional far-out objects which might have been defined to be new "planets" in our eccentric rotational system. Somehow the result of having the family reduced to an official Eight is even worse than the more harmonious status-quo of Nine, and an immense letdown when I thought I'd have an even dozen. I'd already memorized all the names and re-framed my recitation of their order, progressing outward from the Sun! Alas, where's the challenge in now having to forget one of the names I've known by memory since I was a wee thing reading Owl magazine and watching "astronomy for tots" on PBS?

Go hit Wikipedia, or even Google, if you want the details and exact reasoning for the decision. Me, I'm off to raise an icy cold, deep, dark drink in toast to Pluto's continuing, plodding, eccentric orbit out there in the icy cold, deep, dark reaches of of our neighborhood of the galaxy.

Reverse, for Dummies

Well, the first day of my 9th year without a pancreas did not start well.

So, it's no secret that I am not firing on all cylinders first thing in the morning. And I'm worse when my sleep has been disturbed, which it has been several nights recently.

Today, unfortunately, my poor little car wound up suffering for it, and Adam and I consequently had an Amazing-race like chase around town to a body shop first thing today. And all because I was off by probably less than a centimeter.

Yep - bumped the garage door frame trying to back out of the garage. Turned the car just a smidge too soon (I was trying to do the car-shuffle manoeuver and was looking behind me at where I'd parked Adam's car). It wasn't even enough of a bump that I really felt the bump. What I FELT was the bumper cover popping bouncily off the front of my car as I nicked it right at the corner on the weatherstripping of the garage door.

The damage seems like it should be inconsequential. The tiniest of paint chips on the edge of the body panel, and the only breakage of the bumper were two of the loops that hold it to the frame. BUT - car bumpers are a single molded piece of plastic. So, you can't "repair" the clips. Rather, the body shop said they COULD, but the labour to do so would far outstrip the cost of replacing the bumper cover. Add to that, the paint chip, also tiny, nonetheless took the paint off down below the primer and the shop says that means the panel should be repainted or it will corrode - surface touch up would only be a temporary fix.

So began my Wednesday. That was a pretty expensive trip to my first cup of coffee. Bleah.

Pancreas? We don't need no steeenkin' pancreas!

I believe, if I check blog archives, I had a post this day last year. But, I never read my old journals, I bore me.

I am quietly celebrating my 8th "I'm not dead" day today, as follows:

1. One eye exam, passed with flying colours but with a prudent warning about how quickly diabetic retinas go awry with poor glucose control.
2. Some slightly deliberate but mostly impulsive shopping: I got the bottom half of an outfit to wear to the next wedding I must attend, a stunning, flouncy metallic copper skirt (any suggestions for what to look for in a top are welcome). While I was in the market for the wedding outfit, the funky sweater from France was just something I fell over and HAD to have, and the little-black-dress-that-crumples-for-travel was a long-sought lucky find and on sale, so that came home too.
3. My hybrid Macadamia Rooibos and Yogi Chai Spice infusion, in my little spherical steel teapot that makes me happy.
4. An unfortunate bit of on-call work to start in a couple of hours, but for which I will bill my time (and hopefully thereby fund the impulse shopping).

Happy Not-Dead Day! Yay!

Public Service Announcement from Snopes.com

Most folks know I generally resist passing on those "danger in your everyday environment" emails and do my best to debunk alot of them. Snopes.com is one of my favourite web sites, run by determined volunteer "mythbusters" who work hard to reassure us that floor mops do not kill dogs and there is no psychotic perfume salesman actually macing women at the shopping mall.

Snopes current list, however, includes a CONFIRMATION of a recently circulated email warning of the danger of household paper shredders. There are numerous, valid reports of children and pets being maimed, and in the case of pets, killed, as a result of these very common home office tools.

The article is here at Snopes. WARNING!!! The reports are graphic, and disturbing. You don't need to read it if you're feeling overly sensitive, here's the key point:

TURN OFF, DISCONNECT, UNPLUG, OR REMOVE THE BATTERIES from household paper shredders unless you, an ADULT person, are directly making use of such a tool. NEVER leave a paper shredder set in an "auto" mode, which causes it to turn on if something contacts the blades. NEVER leave a paper shredder unattended anywhere a child or pet might possibly gain access to it.

These are common and useful tools in any home office - but because they were designed with office/industrial environments in mind, they have no safety features aimed at preventing small fingers or curious snouts from getting to the blades.

Finally Furnishing!

Well, it's going to be 6-8 weeks to deliver, but Adam and I finally dove in and committed to the sofa! We spent most of an afternoon at Schreiter's in Kitchener, a mid-range to deluxe, contemporary furniture showplace. It's not a bargain shop, but the lines they carry are extensive, and both the service and the free cookies are top-notch. We had a very friendly and accomodating salesperson who spent a couple hours touring us through all 3 floors to flop-test every sectional they carry.

I'm guessing we made the day worth his time. It sure as heck wasn't the cheapest sofa on the market - and it's a multi-piece sectional - but it could have been worse. Let's just leave it at it's a good thing we can spread the total cost over a couple of months' credit card bills before it goes onto the mortgage/credit account.

It's an all-wood-frame, handmade-in-Canada, Stylus custom sectional sofa. Look at the Lyric model on the site - ours is actually the Chorus, which they don't have on-line, but the form factor is almost identical to the Lyric. The Chorus has topstitching on all seams rather than piping, so it's the tiniest bit smoother in its lines.

The slightly muted blue Ultrasuade we chose is a bit more intense a colour than I had imagined, but is still pretty easy to get along with. I'm going through an "avoid beige at all costs" phase, but I didn't want a piece as big as a sofa being the furniture drama queen of the house. I'm still hoping for an eventual raspberry-red accent chair to do that and will be otherwise content with muted non-browns, I think.

Adam was an absolute dear today spending a whole afternoon on the kind of shopping he hates, so I am going to do my best to keep a lid on the mania of design ideas running through my head when it comes to our loft for a couple of months. Practically speaking, this is the only BIG purchase for this year anyway. I'm hoping a couple hundred $$ here-and-there will add accent tables and lighting and such, or maybe I'll get to paint my office, but we'll be harboring my old futon armchair and the $25 IKEA cube ottoman for a little while, I guess. I'm pondering asking Schreiters if they can get Stylus to send me a couple extra metres of the upholstery so I can slipcover an existing thing or two to match.

Back home. Ugh...

Back home, 3 days into penicillin for the strep throat that began flaring as we travelled on Thursday (hence the lack of posting). I felt it hit, so got to the doc for the antibiotics right away Friday and STILL spent 2 days in bed with a 39 degree fever. Now that the outside temperature is about that high, I can't tell the difference between me and not me and I think I'm diffusing. At least I'm dizzy.

Always good to keep me distracted, my buddy Steve's alter-ego cat blog made me spit-take. Check out the post entitled "Some of my Retarded Cousins" by Puddy.

One last day by The Bay

Wednesday was our last full day, as we fly out mid-afternoon tomorrow. Today we decided to stay in the city, but I wanted to get to The Other Side and make sure I could at least claim that I'd dipped my toes in the Pacific (as technically, when I was in Vancouver, I only got to the strait).

I've often heard it said if you want to see the real city, ride a bus. Yep. Sadly, very true. We took the Muni out to the Great Highway and saw a few sad (but harmless) examples of real life here. Like the ever-present homeless panhandling, it does dampen the glamour some and make you think. In contrast, we were shortly out to Cliff House, another glitzy and somewhat tacky tourist destination, albeit one where the food is quite good. One of my intentions was to see the Giant Camera, a large, room-sized camera obscura that, when operating, reflects a rotating panorama of the coast. Sadly, we had to take a miss on that. The gift shop proprietors described that as a separate concession, and one whose operator "keeps his own schedule" which seems to be a mystery to anyone else. Ah, well. Brunch was quite good and Cliff House serves the table not with bread, but with fresh, warm popovers. Our waitress was quite generous when I asked for more. Adam quite enjoyed the french toast, and I had what must be a California creation - crab and avocado omelette. Yummy.

After brunch we wandered the beach, I DID get my toes, and my Crocs, into the Pacific and managed to avoid getting stuck with the floating jellyfish remains littering the surf. A good few miles of urban hiking took us to, and through, Golden Gate Park to the DeYoung museum. This was one of my citypass destinations, one which I might have passed up except for the current exhibit of the Quilts of Gee's Bend. As a quilter, this is a really neat exhibit. The quilts are very true to the nature of quilting - made out of desperate necessity - but also a testament to a human craving for art. Many of these quilters may never have seen a painting, much less a gallery in their lives, and grew up in newspaper-lined shacks on river mudflats in rural Alabama. Their quilts, rustic and 'unschooled' though they appear, have some fantastic appeal.

We only took a brief look at the rest of the gallery, as it was getting a bit annoying that Adam was constantly told to carry his camera pack in hand rather than on his shoulder or back, and it was a bit of a drag. We left from there, skipped the tea garden which appeared crowded beyond my comfort and charged an admission - it wasn't clear if that included tea or not. From there, a hike to the south edge of the park got us on another Muni ride to the Exploratorium. This is a hands-on arts-meets-science centre, again very kid-focused and rather kid-full today, though much of the exhibits were still fascinating for geeks like us. We sadly had less than an hour, but because it was my last CityPass destination, Adam joined me and we made the best of what we could. While many of the exhibits were things we found familiar, in principle, they were very nicely executed and installed.

After a ride home to freshen up, we took the recommendation of both a tour book and the hotel concierge and walked to Sam's Grill for dinner. As a last dinner in the city - this was a darned good choice. We found it because I took Adam at his word when he said steak would be nice and went looking for steak. Turns out there are very few "steak house" restaurants in San Francisco, but many "seafood grill" places include a piece of beef or two on their menu. This one did it justice. Adam's New York Strip was at least 1.5" thick and perfectly done, and my shellfish sautee was the best I can recall having. The waiters only added to the meal. All dressed in slightly shabby tuxes, they seemed to be the sort of world-weary men who were not gangsters. They were the sort of men who were head butlers in a gangster's household, who maybe "took care of" a thing or two for the boss if needed. And judging by the food, the chef was obviously used to cooking for "the family" too. As Adam put it, it's the kind of place where the food had to be good or someone was gettin' hurt. Luckily no one had to get hurt.

So, here we are back at the Triton, packing up and trying to cool off the rest of yesterday's sunburn. I expect the next entry will be back in Waterloo, as we'll be on the run most of tomorrow.

Tuesday around the Bay, and over the Bridge

It was actually around noon Tuesday before we got to the bike rental depot. Out of interest in trying something new, we rented a tandem hybrid bike. It is something worth trying, but perhaps San Francisco was not the place for an experiment. If there's ever a next time, I think I prefer to be solely controlling the vehicle I'm powering. Adam had the front as I figured his frustration if not steering would be more severe than mine. It was a little disorienting as I couldn't see what was in front and we had to learn to call out moves to each other. You have to peddle in sync or both coast, there's no disengage between the front and back.

We took an easy meander along the waterfront part of the trail, and detoured a bit at the marina to see the Wave Organ, an art installation now built into the shoreline. Pipes extending into the Bay play "music" as the waves and tide roll in and out. The pier it is built into is constructed of material recovered from the cemeteries that were removed from the city years ago. There are no graves in San Francisco, and out on that lonely point one could fancy that the souls of those dug up might be haunting the rubble of their monuments along with the lonely breezes and seashore noise.

From there we decided we should get a move on if we were to get over the bridge much less around any part of the Bay perimeter. In the end, we didn't get too far. The ride over the Bridge was quite taxing on the strange and unfamiliar wheels, dodging pedestrians and motoring through the high winds almost 300 feet over the water. The views over the bay were spectacular, though. We made it over, me with what turned out to be a 2nd degree sunburn as the helmet didn't shade as much of my neck as my hat did, and my scant base tan was not up to it. At the end of the vertigo-inducing span, we concluded that we weren't going to get too much farther than Sausalito, but at least it was all downhill from there. We stopped at the Gaylord India restaurant and had an exceptional Tandoori lunch in an open dining room overlooking the Bay, and then walked the bike the rest of the way into town. Sausalito was a little bit slower paced than The City, though still quite busy by mid-afternoon.

Meandering up and down the main strip was a strange contrast of art galleries priced beyond reach and tourist kitsch of the sort that just gets re-printed with a different city name in every port. Other than some fun salt-water taffy we picked up as I'd finished the rest of my emergency sugar rations, we were empty-handed (except for the bike) waiting for our ferry back. The ferry ride was fun. Mainly because I didn't have to pedal it, but the views of Sausalito and Tiburon climbing their mountains, the Golden Gate, and the Bay Bridge were really fun as the fog rolled in. We wound up back at the Ferry port, having missed getting on the over-crowded earlier ferry that went back to Fisherman's Wharf. So we finished the day with an extra 20 minutes of riding to get the bike back to a drop-off. One more long hike home was interruped by a stop at Walgreens for Solarcaine. We got home just at the end of the hotel Cookie Hour, and Adam was just ready to crash so I took myself out for a quick, light dinner, and then did the same.

"Anything else you get is a priviledge"

Prisoner rule #5 at Alcatraz Island read something like "You are entitled to food. clothing, shelter, and medical care. Anything else you get is a priviledge".

Yesterday began with my aforementioned summer haircut, and then a meander down to Fisherman's Wharf (including a few pretty steep inclines!) to take in some of the more touristy sites on what we hoped (hah!) would be a less touristy day. Well, it could have been worse. We went to the Aquarium of the Bay, which though it cannot hold a candle to the Monterey facility, has the very fun feature of acrylic tunnels through the bottoms of the 700,000+ gallon tanks. Not too often you see the bottom-side of a fish swimming overhead.

I think we were both a little kidded-out by the time we got out though, between other families that seemed to have 6 of them and a summer camp tour of 50 or so. In an abstract sense, I want places like that to be filled with curious children discovering the ecosystems of our planet. Personally I just wish all kids were like the smaller Hu two - quiet, polite and articulate while being immensely curious, social little people. I've seen way too many ill-behaved pre-adolescents screaming, slamming off walls, or people, and sitting or walking on the explanatory placards this week. Its a sad reality that much of the art and science of such facilities is wasted on the majority of visitors.

At the end of the aquarium walk we encountered a touch pool where I got to touch a few rays and skates and starfish (they had that at Monterey but I missed much of it). One ray was determined to escape the small rock pool and was actually "flapping" up the wall in front of me. I really couldn't figure if that was a normal behaviour that it might attempt to flop overland if "trapped", or if that was a stressed-out animal exhibiting something neurotic. Sadly, the teenagers managing the area were just trying to keep up with the hordes of kids and some simlilarly ignorant adults and couldn't really attend to the animals.

We had a leisurely and for me tipsy late lunch/early dinner at a mercifully quiet Pier 39 restaurant (had a coupon for a free bottle of wine) and then meandered our way to the boarding pass lineup for the night cruise to Alcatraz.

Alcatraz was stark, beautiful, sad, eerie, noisy, smelly, spooky and fascinating all at once. There was so much more history there in addition to what most of the public knows of a few high-profile inmates. It operated for a relatively brief time as a notorious prison, but the history of human settlement goes back to the 1850's and is still evolving in a strange and unique way today.

We got to go through the cellhouse audio tour, narrated by guards and inmates, telling stories of the 29 years of the federal prison. It was a little disappointing that much of the island is closed off this time of year, but that is due to the bird rookeries now present through much of the place. It may need to be renamed Seagull Island, as the Western Gulls obviously own it now!

I picked up a couple of souvenier "Rocks from the Rock" - excavation rubble from the restoration effort being sold to tourists. I acknowledge I've fallen for a gimmick, but the background of this one is in keeping with things I support. Selling the rubble funds the archaeology and restoration effort, prevents tourists from trying to chip off a piece for themselves, AND has the neat side effect of removing a disposal problem the parks service might have. Traditionally rubble and garbage was just tossed in the Bay, but that is obviously no longer acceptable.

We were there at twilight and had the eerie experience of being in and around the cellhouse as the fog blew in. Seeing it billowing through doors and openings, one can half imagine how hopeless a place this must have been for inmates. At the top of the island outside the cell house, we were walled in by the fog. It creates a strange vertigo, you can see no horizon, no clear line between sea and air, nothing. In contrast, historic reports say the families and children who lived here (families of guards and wardens) found it an idyllic little enclave. Gardens were abundant and today, 60+ years since being abandoned to grow wild, tons of exotic species are flourishing among ruins and birds.

Our cruise home was short and uneventful, and another hearty hike got us back to the Triton. Today we're off to bike across the Golden Gate and see what we can see of the northern towns.

Monday Rush Hour

Rush hour is more interesting when I'm not the one rushing. Just popped outside the hotel with my complimentary morning coffee to see if Elevation Salon could fit me in for a haircut. I'm heading back at 10.

So the last few days have been un-blogged due to sheer activity. Friday took some wandering down at the Wharf, Ghirardelli square, and a Bay Cruise I got with my Citypass. I must admit, the cruise was the highlight. I love being out on the water and SF Bay is interesting water.

I found much of the rest of the area way too touristy. Even Ghirardelli square, partially under construction so I couldn't follow the historical tour, seemed overrun with generic handicrafts and cookie-cutter buskers. The walk along the Fisherman's Wharf did lead to a laugh when I encountered the Bush Man, though. I saw him before he got me, and got a smile and a wink for my vigilance, followed by a laugh when he leapt out and scared the crowd behind me.

Saturday was a marathon trip to San Jose and then Monterey with the Hu crew. Even though we were late and it was a long drive in traffic, I'm so thrilled I got to see even part of that aquarium. There's something hypnotic, and humbling, about seeing creatures so alien yet still sharing this blue sphere with us. Monterey Bay alone is so vast, the mind boggles at what is out there beyond the bay limits.

Sunday, due to sunburns and sore feet, we had a lazier, indoor day. The "attraction" for the day was the SFMOMA, something that lived up to many stereotypes of "modern art" (think, blank white canvas titled "Angst of the Demon Hypertext.com" or such) but did show some interesting exhibits. In all, the most enjoyable were the early classics (Matisse, Magritte, Kahlo, O'Keefe), a very striking post-war Japanese photography gallery, and the museum's own collection of current works. I'm afraid I could have skipped the Matthew Barney that everyone seems to think is the prime attraction.

Today began with a haircut in a fancy local salon - fun, the jury is out on the results but it's neater and cooler for now. We're about to be off to the Fisherman's Wharf area, but to see the Aquarium, and then tonight is our Alcatraz cruise.

A balmy Thursday by the Bay

Today involved much walking. Beginning with a hurried search for breakfast on the way to Adam's class, the result of that was not spectacular, but adequate. I wandered back up and down streets and alleys, and eventually to an open-air art-mart in Union Square. Largely paitings, and largely well out of my budget, this art fair also showed some of the striking contrasts of the city - art shoppers juxtaposed against the aimless, homeless lurkers in the shady corners.

After a stop back at the hotel to pick up the pocket map I forgot, I wandered vaguely towards one of my CityPass destinations. In between here and there, though, turned out to be THE shopping district, complete with a Macy's, Nordstrom, Nieman Marcus, and Tiffany's. After stopping into Macy's long enough to spot at $368 made in Korea t-shirt, I realized they were probably scanning my credit cards remotely and charging me for breathing their air, so I stuck to the sidewalks after that.

I eventually arrived at the California Academy of Sciences Steinhart Aquarium, in its "temporary" but still impressive two-storey industrial warehouse home - the permanent facility in Golden Gate Park is under development. This aquaria-focussed tour still included much of terrestrial and airborne California ecology, and more than a few impressive fish, amphibian, and reptile displays. Their oldest fish is an Australian Lungfish about a year older than my Dad, and several of their animals have reached their 50's.

My wanderings took me on a MUNI bus to the Ferry Terminal, where I thought to use my CityPass on the Embarcadero Streetcar line - only to discover that today was a Save the Air day -MUNI was free for all, and consequently VERY crowded with lots of folk who might otherwise have been on foot. Many trolleys went by without stopping. I eventually did catch one, and wound up at Fisherman's Wharf. I stopped at Pier 39 long enough to pick up a coupon book that went with my CityPass then run from the rest of the insane hordes of tourists.

A late lunch happened at one of the walk-through seafood booths serving crab cakes, and then I stopped by the Boudin bakery and Museum - the History of San Francisco as related to Sourdough! Did you know that this bakery company was saved from extinction in the 1906 quake and fire when the proprietess had the presence of mind to run from the collapsing bakery having dumped the "mother dough" into a bucket to take with her? The "mother dough" is the yeast culture completely unique to San Francisco that has been kept going since the 1840s and lends a distinct flair to the many breads from Boudin.

After picking up an authentic Sourdough loaf, a local goat cheese and equally local artichoke/olive spread for a picnic dinner, I waited almost an hour at the cable-car turnaround for my chance to ride one of the San Francisco cable cars, now part of the MUNI. The wait was long due to the "free ride" day (usually a $5 fare, compared to the $1.50 for the bus), but still somewhat entertaining as I watched the cable cars come in, and the ritual of the turn-around was performed. The operators must get out and manually trip the turn release, then push the car around to head back the way it came. There are two operators on each car, one at the front and one at the back, and at each stop and onload/offload they communicate via a pair of bells, the rear operator ringing the "all clear" before the driver will engage the car again. Quite an impressive choreography, and a fun way to navigate the extreme hills.

After trying a local Merlot at the end of wine hour at the hotel, I caught Adam in the lobby. We had our picnic dinner in our room, and then wandered out to do a little bit of shopping for gifts for the younger of the Hu clan we will see Saturday. Now it's back in the room, Adam is studying for his exam, and I'm here on the blog. Tired but awake, I have more plans for tomorrow than I have hours, but I'm looking forward to it.

Made it out west

Can't seem to load any photos over the PDA's wireless, so I've switched over to borrowing Adam's laptop.
If you want the GOOD photos, anyway - head off and check Adam's gallery, he's been updating it daily. You don't need my cel phone snaps.

After a long but not too horrid day of travel, I landed at SFO around 2:45, and by 4:30 had negotiated the baggage claim, air train, BART, and a few blocks of the city to make it to Hotel Triton .
Our room is tiny but cute, the walls are a harlequin pattern in pale blue and butter yellow. I wandered back down to the lobby thinking to meet Adam when he got in from his course, and stumbled upon the nightly Wine Hour and Astrology readings. Our astrologer of the day seemed to be already fully booked but I had a glass of a nice California red I can't remember the name of.

Next it was off to The Stinking Rose for a garlic-laden dinner - I was starving, Adam wasn't really, but we were both quite full after that. So we went for a walk. UP. Up a hill, then another hill, then some stairs on other hills. We made it up to telegraph hill and paid the small fare for the elevator up Coit Tower. From there, you have 360 degree views over the city, quite stunning. The mountains behind the east bay cities to the east, and the Golden Gate and beyond it the Pacific to the west. We watched the sun drop over the Marin County hills.

So far the whole place is very eye-catching, just walking around and not even paying attention to any "tourist" stuff (except, I guess, the Coit Tower ride). The architecture is stunning. We snuck down some stairs and alleys, and found tiny, gorgeous gardens in front of square, blocky, West Coast row houses that appears ready to slip down a hill any moment. Back into the commercial part of the city, it was amusing to see some of the late-night-life on the prowl. Some alleyways turn entirely into restaurants or pubs.

Off to find breakfast, and wander the sights while Adam's in class. More later.

Five to Ten Servings a Day, the Easy Way

So if you didn't already know, one of my favourite things in the world for a couple years now is Smoothies. The gyms started opening Smoothie Bars (which are unfortunately never open when I'm there) and now there's one or two that have popped up on my route to work. But, with a good blender you can save money, and usually sugar additives, and do it yourself.

Smoothies, like pizza, are to me a design concept rather than a rigid recipe. There are key elements to the framework, but unlimited possibilites for endlessly varied, and yummy, meals on the go.

Here's my favourite general framework:

• 4-5 ice cubes, processed on "pulse" setting until crushed up, in the blender
• 1/2 cup to a cup of milk OR yogurt OR soy milk, or if you just want light, crisp, and fruity, fruit juice, ice water or more ice.
• 1 cup or more of semi-frozen fruit chunks.

• Semi-frozen means take the hard-frozen fruit from the freezer and nuke it for 30 seconds to a minute. I was told this by a cranky appliance repair man when I had to take two blenders in for service within only a couple weeks of purchase. Apparently a frozen strawberry could destroy a jet engine and blenders don't have a chance, so part-thaw them first. Bananas can be added fresh and some fruits like raspberries blend easily when fully frozen because they break up.
• Or use all fresh fruit - it'll not be quite as icy-cold but still good. I use frozen for the convenience of not having to chop up and clean up every time I want a smoothie
  

• 1-2 tablespoons of frozen juice concentrate, in place of a fruit you don't have handy or so you can add water instead of juice and still have a richer taste.
  
• Any powdered supplements you want - whey or soy protein to balance carbs, or fibre supplements, or I sometimes use powdered whole-grain rolled oats.
• Sweetener to taste, optionally.
• A few drops of a flavour extract like vanilla or almond adds a nice body. Also optional.

So, having got the basic ingredient categories, the method is:

1. Put in Blender
2. Blend

If you want a little more detail, and to prolong the life of your blender, I do it in the following order:

1. Crush ice
2. Add milk/yogurt/soymilk/water/juice and powders - blend to slushy with ice
3. Add fruit, a bit at a time, blending until smooth.

So, you've got the concept and the method. If you're one those folks who is still reading but thinking you have no idea what fruits go together - the answer is probably that any fruits that you like individually can be put together into a smoothie. But, for those who must have directions, here are a couple of my favourite recent inventions.

The Ontario Summer Market Special smoothie:

• 4-5 ice cubes, crushed.
• Add 1/2 cup of unflavoured or vanilla yogurt and blend
  
• 2 tbsp frozen apple juice concentrate, unsweetened - blend
• Optional: 1/2 scoop of protein powder, fibre supplement, or powdered oats - blend
  
• Add semi-frozen fruit:
• 1/3 cup peaches
• 1/3 cup strawberries and/or raspberries
• 1/3 cup melon chunks
• 1 tsp honey, or to taste, optional

Add fruit a bit at a time and blend each time, then blend until smooth once everything is in.

A Northern Tropical Smoothie

• 4-5 ice cubes, crushed
• 2 tbsp unsweetened orange juice concentrate - blend
• 2 tbsp coconut milk* OR 1/2 tsp coconut flavour extract - blend
  
• Optional supplements: protein and/or fibre and/or oat powder - blend
• Fruit chunks:

• 1 small or 1/2 large banana, fresh or frozen
• 2/3 c. frozen pineapple chunks
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh coconut* or dried, unsweetened coconut

• 1/2 to 2/3 c. of plain or vanilla soy milk
• optional sweetener to taste - sugar, brown sugar or Splenda
  

Add fruit gradually and crush on the "pulse" setting. For some reason this particular recipe works better for me when I do that, then pour the soy milk over, and blend until smooth.

* Coconut prep: I love real, fresh coconut but it's a pain. If you want to do it, drain the coconut water into an ice cube tray and freeze. Bust open and cut up the coconut flesh into french-fry sized pieces, and freeze these. Throw one coconut ice cube and a few of the strips of coconut into the blender with the ice cubes and crush.

If you're not into the whole live coconut project, some ethnic and organic food stores carry canned coconut milk. Get the plain, unseasoned kind, and pour the can out into an ice cube tray and freeze. If you don't like the small chewy bits of coconut in a drink, JUST use the frozen canned coconut milk, as it's quite dense and creamy compared to the stuff you get out of fresh coconut.

Something I learned this week....

Prepackaged burritos can be heated in a wide-slice toaster.

However, if it is a frozen burrito, let it thaw first or you have a crispy toasted outside and icy bean-slush in the centre.

Another warning: Make sure the tortilla is intact. The cleaning staff at work probably don't like exploded burrito guts in the toaster.

California, Here I Come...

Still more than a month away, but this should be fun.

Here is the hotel, Hotel Triton, Adam's company travel agent found for us in San Francisco.

They have a wine tasting hour with massage chairs and Tarot readings every evening, fresh baked cookies twice a day, and "celebrity" rooms designed by Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Woody Harrelson and more.

Sure beats the Holiday Inn Express.

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

News update on me:

Work: status quo.
Home: very nice. Has more art now thanks to generous Benjamin siblings allowing us a turn with Sassy's time-share masterpiece. Still needs a sofa.
Personal projects: pursuing a car-free week in honour of Commuter Challenge.
Menus: nothing of note lately. Tried a mock-pot-pie tonight with some leftover chicken and a Pillsbury pressure-dough tube, it was soupy.
Mundane achievements: survived 35th birthday. Am I middle aged yet?
Fun: Off to San Francisco for a week in July . Milwaukee, too, but that's work and not nearly so choice a destination.
Sooner fun: Sissy, Hubby and the Bump coming to visit Saturday, if plans don't change. (The Bump being the now two-years-and-some Owen).
At the moment: off to wash me head and get some sleep.

Maybe not the greatest menu...

Double-salt licorice and pepperettes for lunch... hmm.

One of those days when we're scavenging the desk drawers for food.

Nostalgic Guelph Moments....

Trying to isolate myself from chatter and focus on my job today, I pulled out my iPod and started dialling down my artists list.

Came across this one I'd recently ripped and forgotten about: Black Cabbage .

Read the record review from that link. I can't describe them any better, musically.

Black Cabbage is one of very, very few bands I repeatedly and deliberately sought out at live shows. Hillside Fest, the Trasheteria, or the Albion, they were THE act to see in Guelph in the years post-scholarship-undergrad but pre-pancreatic disaster (umm.. mid=90's for those who don't mark time by my personal benchmarks). A Black Cabbage show was always a frantic, thrashing crowd, which you know in most circumstances I hate, but there was something about the chemistry that happened around this band that made it the most friendly mosh pit I've ever heard of.

Unfortunately, but possibly not unexpectedly, the creative maelstrom of some 8 talented folks was not sustainable and as far as I know, these individuals all went their own ways in the late 90's. But if you're a fan of genuine Canadian Eclectic Indie music, it might be worth the effort to dig up their catalogue.

Headphones on! Back to the grind.

Why I'm pretty uninspired lately...

Because THIS ---->


Is what I see all day.

I can't compete with my wonderful live-in photographer's immense talent, so I've decided I won't even try, I'll just see what I can come up with from my camera phone. But I'm not even getting far with that. Work is not very inspiring at all. And that's all I get all day.

If you are calling for Mrs. Benjamin, please hang up....

Some recent and extremely disruptive calls from TD Canada Trust lately have prompted me to wonder... how do telemarketers get on at cocktail parties?

Other guest: "Nice to meet you, Sid. What is it you do for work?"
Telemarketer: "Oh, I phone people when they're eating, playing with their kids, or trying to take a dump, in order to harangue them to buy unnecessary products and services they never thought they'd need..."
Other guest: (sidesteps rapidly to go find a slaughterhouse worker to chat with...)

I actually repeated the sentence: "I am not interested in any additional credit cards" 4 times for the TD Visa slob who called, and I think I snapped at that point - I've been quite rude (even for me!) to the next couple. HOPEFULLY after the last one, when I finally remembered to explicitly request that they remove me from their call lists, they'll stop. It's that much more annoying that they keep calling as I am completely removing my business from TD after their screwed-up handling of my investments over the last few years.

Also sick of telemarketers? Check out the-cma.org, under Consumer information, and register for the Do Not Contact service. It's no guarantee, but marketers who are at least responsible enough to cross-check their DB with the CMA Do Not Contact list should be removing your name if you're registered. It's better than nothing. Also remember to ask all parties from whom you request information - including magazine subscriptions and charities - to NOT share your address. Most of those are concerned enough with your business that they will respect your request.

Failing that, screen calls. Anyone who calls our house for Mr. Botari or Mrs. Benjamin deserves a hangup, as they obviously don't know who they're calling.

Helo, MoMo... hee hee!

(Photos.blogger.com seems to not be loading right now - no pic today!)

Ok, so I'm hardly competing with the real enthusiasts, but in between cleaning up the old place and setting up the new, I've had a couple hours of geeking out this weekend, figuring out how to hack... er, 'customize' my new Motorola RAZR v3 BLK.

Thanks to MotoModders, MotoX, and poetic_folly's Motoguide, I've dug up what it takes to update my phone software, fix a resulting bug, load a new skin and re-flash. If you look at those sites above, you'll of course find there's so much more and I'm hardly among the elite, but hey, I'm proud of myself, having done nothing more geeky than change my Windows wallpaper in a couple years. Maybe I'll get into seem editing after a little more study.

Ooops....

Well, it was bound to happen at some point. Our first observed incident of cat vs. gravity occurred today when I popped home for lunch.

I heard a soft scuffling and saw one foot and a tail swing down below the loft railing, and before I could get there, Maui went FLUMPPPPH onto the seat of the futon.

Luckily, he was more surprised than hurt or upset. I'm not sure what he was doing, or if Sprout! pushed him. Blue was on the ground floor with me, so it wasn't her.

Also luckily, I had removed hard or pointy things from the end of the couch under the railing. I think this is some impetus to get more junk out from under the loft rail. If they're going to do that, landing on the futon cushion is fine, but if they miss that, I want them to hit carpet or floor, not say, a pile of lamps or a dissassembled shelf on which they will impale themselves.

I'm guessing if Maui did this while performing stunts on the railing, he's bright enough to not try again soon, but if it was an escape attempt from a more aggressive cat, it might not be the last.

Look out below!