My Missouri weekend

I'm back (about 15 bug bites later) from my visit to Missouri to visit with ervy's cousins, grandma, and uncle. We flew into St. Louis around midnight on Thursday and then drove 2 hours to Cape Girardeau.


evvie and me in front of one of the murals in cape by the mississippi

We had reservations at the Drury hotel (according to evvie's grandma, "those Drury boys did well. They tiled our bathroom too"), located right across from the Walmart supercenter. We crashed there until morning and then drove over to Grandma's house (evvie's grandma, but i'll refer to her as just grandma from here on). I met Grandma, Uncle Barry, his girlfriend Marty, Cousin Russell, Russell's girlfriend Christy, Cousin Lucas, pitbull puppy Jada, and large black lab puppy Cole.



Amusing things of note from this family trip:
1) Grandma's favorite and only swear word she'll say is "shit poop"
2) Uncle Barry has major beef with Sears over a rebates
3) Uncle Barry will always get angered over people shopping anywhere except Walmart and Sam's Club. (like when we wanted to go to Petco to get the puppies some toys that would last longer than 30 minutes, we got an earful of 'WHY ARE YA GOING THERE?' questions, statements)
4) Basements can be frightening
5) people seem to like to turn the tv on when they get up in the morning, and leave it on all day, even if they leave the house. I find this to be very odd as well as a waste of electricity.
6) people in cape girardeau don't donate much other than clothes to goodwill. My trip there to see what people give up left me empty handed.
7) the other side of the mississippi river, Illinois, has an old speakeasy (the Purple Crackle) but besides that, seems to just be miles and miles of farmland
8) there really aren't any coffee shops. There was a Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble, but the grocery store clerks looked at me pretty blankly when I asked about local coffee spots
9) there's so much porch sittin'
10) there are a bijillion religious/political billboards around Missouri

I went shootin' in Missouri. We went out to Uncle Barry's house in the country (near Jackson, MO) off some dirt road. Unlce Barry lives in a double wide (pre fab house) to which he has added a large family room and an above ground pool. I immediately noticed mosquitoes landing on me, although Uncle Barry loudly disputed that I had indeed seen a mosquito. I sprayed myself with OFF! as Uncle Barry and Marty told me what I really had to worry about was all the ticks they have right now. Eeeks!

I'm not a big fan of guns. I actually find them quite scary, which is why I wanted to shoot at least once. I used one of the lighter weight guns and shot off 9 bullets (there was a dud in the clip).


I didn't do too shabby. I hit the target each time, just not always on the black part. Looky! I got through the heart once! This is the only target I ever plan on shootin', just wanted to do it once.


Here's evvy loading a gun and cousin Luke in his shooting attire.

Happy Birthday Paulie!

Happy Birthday Paulie!


sorry for the craptastic photo :( I can't wait to go to the cheesecake factory tonight to celebrate! YUM!

Relay for Life
last Saturday I went to the Los Altos Relay for Life to "Knit A Round." Hollis of Full Thread Ahead, organized a knitting team, and we knitted chemo caps and raised money for the relay! What fun! I got to meet Dina, Hollis, and Maglia!



the Los Altos High School Track was quite nice, one of those rubbery squishy numbers that is better for your feet and ankles. All around the track were these Luminarias that were to be lit in the evening for a cancer patient. During the daylight though, they just looked like plain paper bags.



Reader Question
Also Abigail asked where I got the pattern for the Irish Hiking Wrist Warmers. I was negligent in my linkage. The wonderful Delia of Wine and Needles created the pattern which is available here.

fo's fo me and others

after sitting a very long time on my needles untouched, I finally picked up my sock to be and finished it off. It is my first sock, and I think I would like to make its mate after I finish off a couple more of my WIPs.

It's made of some self stripey soft TLC on size 7 circs from the Weekend Knitting pattern on striped jazz socks. I think I'd like to get better at the kitchener stitch as the end of the toe and heel looked a little funky.



I'm also heading off to a baby dinner thing tomorrow, so I've made a quick umbilical cord hat from some bernat cotton tots. So cute! I posed it with my new book, Knitting on the Edge, which I have been coveting for quite awhile, but I only bought it recently when my friend Lourdes brought me a 40% off coupon for my local Michael's!


Speaking of Michael's, I couldn't help but pick up a few beads to make this pretty choker for my mom's bday (in september, I'm just preparing early).


I also finished off Roxy's bday gift of orange irish hiking arm warmers done in that wonderful Anni Blatt yarn I bought in Texas.


If you're ever in SF on the weekend, I highly recommend looking up the Blue Jay Cafe. Their brunch is FANTASTIC and quite reasonable. Evvie ordered a pulled pork sandwich which was delish! And I got some sort of yummy andoiulle sausage scramble. The place is a small popular neighborhood spot that serves up some yummy southern type cuisine!

very staccato blog post i realize, but my brain is fried currently...

USATODAY.com - Picture perfect cell phone

USATODAY.com - Picture perfect cell phone

okay happy dance. quick post (i have a long post upcoming eventually!), but I've been on cloud 9 since I got my new sony ericsson s710a phone yesterday. I LOVE it. ok, there are some things that bug me, but really, this phone makes me so happy it feels sinful (how can I derive so much joy from such a material possession? I guess I'm freakin' shallow like that)

anyway, JOY!

yarn haul and an amazing RAOK!

I'm so touched by the kindness of people that I've met online in the knitting blog world. I've even enjoyed meeting up with several of you to knit. When I see knitters getting together to do amazing things (like all the fund raising yarn harlot did for doctors without borders, and the relay for life knitting team that Hollis has organized) it makes me feel a little better about the world and renews my faith in people again. (on a totally random note, the movie Enron made me feel like all people might be untrustworthy and left me with a bad taste in my mouth and tears in my eyes).

Yesterday I got home and in the mail was one of the most wonderful RAOKs I've ever received! Caitlyn sent me FOUR VINTAGE KNITTING MAGAZINES!!!! GAH! I'm so happy! I LOVE vintage knitting mags! And she had a wonderful note along with it! I'm so touched that she gave me such a thoughtful gift! I've already flipped through the 2 spinnerin mags, and I think a lot of the fishermen sweaters are so CUTE (and the sweater dresses amuse me and delight me to no end)! I'm saving the vogue knitting ones to flip through once I've finished my work tonight!


If I get off my butt to the scanner, I see more vintage patterns of the day (photos) in the future of this blog! Thank you so much Caitlyn!

Texas Yarn Store Review
In asking for Chicago yarn store recommendations, I realized I didn't get a chance to review the two yarn stores I visited in Houston, Texas. Ervy and his brother were kind enough to driver around to Meyerland and elsewhere to visit two stores in one day!

The first yarn store I visited was Nancy's Knits in Meyerland. It had moved a couple streets away from it's stated location on the website, but the marquis sign told us which street it was. The new place (they'd been there for a month) was in a large shopping center with a super market and near some hunan restaurant. Unfortunately, it had no sign yet, so it was difficult to spot.

The store itself was stocked to the brim with yarn. It had a lot of yarn in too little space if you ask me. There were towering cubes filled with yarn separated by small 2 foot aisles that were a little claustrophobic. I was excited to see that much wonderful yarn, but I was highly dismayed to find that nothing had a price label on it. I find it irritating to have to ask each time I pick up a skein how much it costs. So of course I didn't, and I ended up spending way too much money.

I bought 3 bright orange balls of Anni Blatt yarn (okay, up until yesterday, I thought it was AMY Blatt, the two n's sort of melded together in my mind. Then another knit friend corrected me yesterday. oops!), 2 balls of a yummy merino PaintBox yarn, and some other yarn that is on its way to my SP5. I was also searching for some non metal short circulars to bring on the plane with me. The store itself didn't have any short enough. The saleswoman did offer to lend me hers and I could mail it from California (again, knitters are such wonderful people!), but I knew I was heading to another yarn store, so I thanked her and went on my way.



The second yarn store we visited was Yarns 2 Ewe

I liked this yarn store better as it was brightly lit, had more space to move around, and had prices on everything (and a nice sale area at the back). The staff was fairly friendly, and the told me about a spinning shop I can visit next time called The Upstairs room. I ended up buying the summer and spring issues of spin-off, 3 sale skeins of Classic Elite Paisley wool yarn, and 3 clover tools that help you tie fun asian knots for buttons and closures!

chicago has good hot dogs, right?

So there is a possibility that I will be going to Chicago for 5-7 weeks this summer with work. This is both exciting (it's an amazing opportunity for me) and daunting (I hear it's really really hot over there, and I'd be working LOTS, the work may be really demanding and stressful, and there will be no ervy).

I won't know for a bit if I'm going or not, since my professor is offering the opportunity to graduate students first. So, we'll see :)

Anyone know any good yarn shops in Chicago?

cousins' graduation

*ahem! cough, cough *



yes, so... I went through all of my cousins' graduations and receptions and lunch/dinner without anyone noticing (including myself) my fashion mishap. Only as the family gathering was dispersing did my cousin Christine ask, "Um, Lori, did you know that you're wearing two different shoes?"

ack! I was deciding between the two shoes yesterday morning, and I really thought I had put both the flower ones on before I left. oops. Both shoes were similar in height so I didn't notice any problems walking, and they are similar enough in color that no one noticed it right off the bat.

This is a short blog burst today. My brother showed me his new cell phone yesterday, and I had fun playing around with it. He's actually going to return it and get a better one (with a 2megapixel camera), but I like his. My dad has already agreed to getting me one for my birthday! yay! more photo taking capability for the bloggy blog! the pic of my shoes above and the following two are from his cell phone (i shrank them in photoshop)

big headed asha


and sleepy nikko

Saving Face

Saving Face was probably the best movie I've seen in long time. It's amazing that you can forget how good a movie can really be until you see one that really resonates with you. Really this movie was funny, emotional, and mentally stimulating.

I know this is often said about other Chinese American movies (think JLC), but they really captured the Chinese American (adult generation) community well, and many scenes were amusing in their familiarity and obvious silliness (at least from the point of view of this 3rd gen gal).

Y'all should go see this movie! The only part I found hard to swallow was the ending, but, heck, it's hollywood. I liked the rest of the movie enough anyways.

I'm even going to recommend to my parents that they see this movie, although I know there may be some scenes that make them uncomfortable (really just 1 or 2 short scenes).

spinning
I started spinning again 2 nights ago while watching TV. I spun up almost all of the superwash merino my wonderful SP4 sent me! The most fun discovery of the night was that I can finally do the long draw! (or at least I can do it with this roving). It is uber fun, and I definitely think i'd like to sping this way more often in the future. Anywho, I spun it up into singles and spun up some wonderful bright red wool singles to ply it with. The resulting yarn is very bright and pretty and reminds me alot of of some of the bright plies of snapcrafty yarns. Pictures to come later when I dig out my camera.

so this isn't an entirely pictureless post, here's nikko when he first investigated the cubby of the dvd rack that ervy built:


the cats have been wigging me out. Nikko jumps onto the stove and counters when we're not looking. I've caught him on the stove, and he gets a good squirting, but he doesn't really seem to care afterwards, since he'll jump right back on again. This mainly means that 1) we have to be uber careful when we're cooking (no leaving unattended stockpots heating on the stove 2) no waiting to clear up leftovers out of the pans on the stove or nikko will do it for us (I've caught him doing this) 3) I need to keep anything fragile or dangerous off the countertops. Meaning I can't leave wine glasses that need washing next to the sink or nikko may topple them over, and no leaving sharp objects on the counters. This morning I found a pair of scissors on the bathroom floor that Nikko (I guess it COULD have been asha, but nikko is the one who mainly jumps on the counters) had dragged off of the kitchen counters. He's such a trouble maker!!!

movie week

This week is movie week. On Monday evening, my friends and I went out to catch the latest Star Wars Movie. I personally think it was a waste of money. Very cheesy. Ervy sent me this cute comic about it that amused me.

Tuesday night we watched Finding Neverland with Paulie. I lurve me some Johnny Depp. I enjoyed the movie, and it reminded me a bit of Big Fish in some of the more imaginative parts.

Last night ervy and I finally saw Hairspray (yay John Waters). I still think I like Polyester best, but Hairspray was fun/interesting. I didn't know anything about it besides the fact that it was by said director and ricki lake is in it. It was a fun throwback to times of old when people would actually watch tv just to see people learn actual dances. I did think the beatniks were an odd/amusing touch.


Tonight: Saving Face. I have heard good things about this movie from some of the Asian American online communities I'm on. It's by local director (San Jose) Alice Wu.

i'm alive and well

sorry to have left everyone hanging. I was quite quite ill when last I blogged, but then even after the doctor's appointments, I still had to run into work to try to tie up some loose ends, and then pack like a mad woman before I trucked off to Houston to see ervy's brother graduate.

Here's Sean, the happy high school graduate:


I got to meet scads of evan's family. I learned all about the past year of one of his uncle's medical history (stuff neither evan nor sean had any clue about) as told by his aunt while ironing sean's shirt for graduation. I had the wonderful chance to be caught off guard by evan's mom's birthday. Apparently it was the sunday of graduation May 29 (again, evan and sean were clueless that it was their mother's birthday). There I was stuck without a gifty, so evan and I raced out before graduation (like 30 minutes before) and picked up season 3 and 4 of West Wing for her.

Graduation itself was quite interesting. It was threatening to rain the entire time, and as they were calling out the graduates names for them to get their diplomas, it started to thunder and lightning directly over head so that half the audience ran away while the ceremony continued.

This is the puzzle that saved me during my trip to Houston. It's 2000 pieces, and provided wonderful focus for me during times of M familial stress and bustle.


food tour
Most of my time in Houston after focusing on the graduation weekend, was spent seeking out tasty food places. I made sure to hit my favorites like Goode Company Barbecue (the ribs and sausage are quite yummy, and the smoked duck is AMAZING. And don't forget the jalepeno bread) and House of Pies (for that wonderful pie 24 hours of the day!). I also went to Pappadeux and had some tasty creole food (my first time having dirty rice and shrimp creole), and I ate the most fantastic sweet potato pecan pie *YUM*! Evan's mom made red beans and rice for me (a dish fairly foreign to me, but yummy all the same). I had some of the tastiest pizza Houston has to offer from Star Pizza (their salads are so yummy, I think I had the "chelsea"). We had some mediocre vietnamese food at Mai's (I think it was mediocre because the dishes ordered weren't really vietnamese (but instead a poor rendition of chinese food), there were two tofu dishes that basically tasted the same and were unextraordinary). The last meal we had there was sought out in the Bellaire area of Houston. We went to Santong Snacks for some of the yummiest dumplings I've had in a long time (sean refused to try the pig ear appetizer we got). Here's a photo (not mine) of some of the yummy dumplings at Santong Snacks for your drooling pleasure. The dumplings we ate were not fried.


devil's many disguises
Wow. this Walmart (seen near the Meyerland side of Houston) looks like a Whole Foods... weird creepy image change, no?

can i just get something to numb all this?

completely irrelavent misery speak
evan got me a new thermometer. It's a lot cuter than the one I used to use at home, it's blue and by Vick's. It also spits back my temperature in a matter of seconds. Currently, I'm at 101.8, but i'm hoping it goes down soon before I go to pick up ervy and matt at the caltrain.

I have to say, I was quite happy with my palo alto medical foundation. I was able to get a doctor's appt easily this morning, and evan helped drive me there. My doctor (not my normal one) was an extreme fast talker. It was a little overwhelming, but she took my throat culture and even wrote me a note for work (unneccesary for where i work, but I was too amused at the prospect of getting a doctor's note to turn it down. Under doctor's orders, i'm officially not allowed to go into work until wednesday, and even then, it's only if i feel better). Unfortunately, my strep culture came back negative, so i had to go back in this afternoon so they could draw blood (oh god i hate needles, *side note* it once took two nurses to hold me down to get a shot when i was young. i tried to run for the door. damn that shot hurt.) So now I get to wait a couple days for them to tell me if i have mono. To be honest, I can't imagine how I would get mono. I do work at a college campus with lots of students everyday, but i certainly don't swap spit with any of them.

My pain:
fevers
hot flashes (suddenly breaking into a sweat for a good hour) / cold flashes (teeth chattering, making me curl into a fetal position under the covers until i get warm again)
hugely swollen and very painful throat and lymph nodes
headaches
nausea every once in a while
earaches when my body gets too warm
general fatigue and achey-ness all over

In general, i'm just a big plate of misery consumed with a tall glass of guilt. Why the guilt? This week is really crunch week for me at my jobs. School is going to let out soon, and I'm taking off for evan's brother's graduation this friday. I need to wrap up these experiments stat. And if i do have mono, what then? does that mean i'm incapacitated for a month? or can i work normally?

on friday, i started cleaves, although i am worried about running out of yarn (i'm using lion brand woolease chunky on size 10s. The color is pumpkin, and I got it on sale when the seasonal color was being discontinued. I originally bought 4 balls, but I used up 1 1/2 on another project earlier. so we'll see if I have enough. if anyone has this yarn in this color, i'd be willing to pay for it or work out some kind of trade.

ok. i'm going to go back to dying now.

cleaves

okay, when I first saw Cleaves from the most recent knitty, I thought, "huh?"

but after seeing this post in the LJ knitting community, I have to say, I think it's damn cute. I'm sure a 21987394757 people would dissagree with me, but ervy likes it, so I'm going to give it the go ahead... Now I just need to figure out if I have the yarn in my stash to complete it or if I have a reason for buying more YARN!!!

Okay, so I'm already bidding on some lamb's pride bulky on ebay. But I found a craftster post where some people have made Cleaves with Lion Brand Wool Ease Chunky on size 10s. I may try that since I actually have enough of this at home to do a Cleaves (they said it toook 2 2/3 balls). So my first Cleaves may be either orange or blue or some mix of both.

In the meantime, here's my teensy bit of progress on my non-mikado ribbon fingerless gloves. The end is so near and yet with my schedule, so far. For some reason the lighting made it look like they're two different colors. it's not. my camera's just crazy.


non knitting, actually, food related
I've been eating tasty food all week. Even on my major work day that beat me nearly to death, I came home and ervy had a delicious plate of butini pasta with a creamy porcini mushroom sauce *YUM!*

On our monthaversary, we roasted up some fresh veggies, (mmm, look at the caramelized goodness!):


and we had some pulled pork (placed fittinly in my pig plate):


Last night, I made fresh tortillas for the first time. I bought the masa from Mi Rancho, and a tortilla press, and soon I was frying up some tortillas!


Paulie got caught by the blog cam!!

Arboreal Salamander

After many months of not looking, I finally found out what the two salamanders in my recycle bin were.

They are Arboreal Salamanders, known for climbing trees! Their tails are prehensile, so they actually can use them in climbing. Also, they can apparently squeak like mice, and deliver a painful bite if provoked.

Why the sudden spur to find out information about these wet little creatures? My GSB boss befriended one from his yard. He had no idea what it was but wanted to feed it. So I did a couple google searches.

My searches also led me to
This blog post where a guy runs through what he's been bitten by. For my own catalog and perhaps lack of blogging material, I have decided to make my own list (much shorter, but I'm sure it will fill out in my lifetime).

Animals by which I have been bitten:

Teddy Bear Hamsters These guys are normally so sweet tempered. Just don't surprise them when they're asleep by trying to lift them out of their warm nest. My thumb got bitten so hard I think it hit a nerve.

Dwarf Hamsters I never met one of these devils that didn't bite

cat That cat at Wegman's was certainly finicky about being petted.

spiders oh god. I hate them so much

mosquitos Camping is a miserable experience for me. Even with pounds of bugspray on, the little buggers seek me out. My mom tells me it's because my blood is naturally sweet.

fleas while visiting a now ex-boyfriend's family, I found out and informed them that they had an infestation of fleas. Their cat had brought them in, and the little buggers were jumping up on our legs from the floor.

cockatiel his name was Pete. He was the pet of an exboyfriend's little brother. As a baby, this bird was such a sweetie. Later on though, he nipped everyone quite hard!

human someone's baby bit my cheek when I was young. They thought he was going to give me a kiss. They were wrong.

firebellied newt had some as pets. the nips don't hurt at all since their mouths are so soft.

lice doesn't every kid get those annoying buggers

yellow jacket I was just playing volleyball at a friend's bday party when one decided to fly up my shorts and take a chunk out of my thigh.

catfish 6th grade camp we went up into the Sierras. We spent some time jumping off rocks into a deep pond which had many little catfish. Climbing out, they kept mouthing/sucking my toes.

Q&A or responses in general

no time for knitting content since I have an 11hour work day to get through (it was going to be 12 but i canceled my first experiment because I thought I would collapse). So today I will catch up on answering some questions from y'all.

1. Multiple people have asked whether chinchilla fur is spinnable. Well, I guess it could be, but I would have to answer 'no' anyway. Chinchilla fur has a short staple length, maybe 1" and no crimp. It is silky soft, but chinchillas do not shed unless they are stressed or terrorized. If caught, they will 'release' fur, but I wouldn't ever suggest harvesting chinchilla fur like this because A) it would make for a very nervous and unhappy chinchilla B) it would make for a very bald and cold chinchilla. Chinchillas can take quite a while to regrow fur they have lost.

2. CynCyn asks if I make my Hot Pot sauce with or without the egg. I do not personally make it with the egg, but I do know what you're talking about as I've seen friends do it... don't worry, my hot pot experience was still uber tasty!

3. Tanya asks how to get avocado seeds to sprout as hers is taking a while to do so. From what I've read, not all avocado seeds sprout, so the seed could be a dud. Also, avocado seeds can take anywhere from 2-8 weeks to sprout probably also dependent on the method you are using to sprout them. Many people (myself included) enjoy watching the process and stick toothpicks in the sides of the seed to hold it up on a jar of water. This is a very fun way to try to grow them, but the seed will actually sprout faster and be hardier if started in moist soil with just the top (the pointier end) sticking up out of the soil.



4. Thank you for Meriah for the advice on the Cherimoya seeds taking a long time to sprout. Thus far, none of the seeds I stuck in pots with bags over them have sprouted, but I'm still hopeful :)

5. Thanks for the compliments on the family pics. Shhhh... no one tell them they're up on my bloggy blog. My family is really weird about having their pics up on the public space. But I think they are all cute, and y'all deserve to see my cute family.

6. Ada pointed out there is a knit in public day. Really everyday is a knit in public day for me (I always knit a bit on the bus), but I'm all for knitters taking to the streets in mass. Join up, yo!

7. thank you all for your compliments on my little deck garden. It certainly makes me happy (and will hopefully feed me nicely over the summer).

8. Since SP4 finished I should mention that not only did Vicki spoil me, but I had a lot of fun sending treats to Cece. Stop by their blogs and say 'hi'

warming up weekend

Friday evening I came home and fell asleep on the futon in my living room only to wake up to a guy in sunglasses standing above me in the living room window. Naturally (for me) I went ahead and screamed and rolled off the futon in surprise. It was just Nick Chan, stopping by to say 'hi' as he was biking home.

Luckily the rest of the evening was fairly low key and relaxing. Ervy, the kitties, and I curled up on the couch to watch most of our TiVo'd weekly show that we hadn't had a chance to see during the week. It was a wonderful sleepy end of a work week. Even Nikko was tuckered out, and curled up on ervy's lap for a nap


Saturday we started off the day by heading over to Common Ground (a organic community garden center which sells lots of heirloom seeds and organic gardening supplies). I purchased a bag of cocoa husks for mulch which made my car smell deliciously like CHOCOLATE! mmmm! We then headed out for dim sum and happened to see different fun things to go to along El Camino.

We ended up stopping at Palo Alto High School's Flea Market where I picked up a couple of 80's crochet magazines and some neat Swedish board things.

Awkward moment (while paying for the crochet mags)
old man seller dude: are you chinese?
me: yes
omsd: how come so many chinese people are with caucasian people (nodding off at ervy who had moved on in the flea market, and adam and emi who also walked on)?
me: um, I don't know
omsd: I thought Chinese people liked to stick together
me: uh, I think it's a generational thing
omsd: oh yeah, like they used to make the women bind their feet.
me: yes. (paid guy and jetted off)

Here are the Swedish board thingies I bought. I just thought they were pretty. the rectangular one says, "Give us our daily bread" (said the vendor), but we have no idea what the round one says. If any of y'all read Swedish, I'd love to know. I was a little peeved to find a sharpied 'x' (near the top) on the rectangular one when I got home. The seller had covered it up with the price sticker.


The rest of Saturday afternoon consisted of sober me, with two drunken males: ervy and paulie. We stopped off at the Wine and Brew festival at Menlo Park College.

I was the chosen designated driver for good reason since I can't drink very much, leading to another awkward moment when the ticket guy tried to get me to buy a drinking wristband as well:

me: I can't drink very much anyway, I get drunk after a glass of wine.
old man ticket guy: *chuckle* where were girls like you when I was growing up?
ervy: um, I think we'll go over here *pulls me away toward the festival*

So we spent a few warm hours at the festival in the sun (we all walked away with sun burns). I followed along watching paulie and ervy drink lots of wine and beer. We also got to see a few drunk old people being...drunk. Always amusing. We finished the day off with a quest for deli meats and some game playing.
Nikko decided he really likes the Woodside Deli bags:


Sunday, not too much occurred other than some pretty radish pickling:




Knitting content
So I didn't make pom poms for my coffee hat yet. I haven't decided what yarn (color) I want to make them out of.... brown or white or the coffee yarn itself? So here I am wearing it in its uncompleted state. Imagine pompoms at the end of the i-cords and one on top of the hat.


I also made some progress on the lap blanket I'm knitting from Weekend Knitting using some recycled yarn and some Geisha yarn.

oh fridays

fridays are the days that participants sign up for experiment times, and then flake because it's such a gorgeous day, and they'd rather spend it with their friends. So I'm stuck in a windowless basement, waiting around for people that never come. I can't complain too much, since I get paid no matter what, but still! I still feel like it's a waste of time somehow.

I'm almost done with my hat... in that it's knitted up, I just need to weave in the ends and make pom poms for it. The GOOD NEWS is that it ACTUALLY FITS!! Yay for random guessing and increasing whenever I felt like it. (I'm sure this concept horrifies many knitters... um... so... uh... sorry?). Pictures to come, next week!

so for now, I'll shove pictures of my garden at you. My patio garden never ceases to amaze me. Even while I try to naturally get battle pests such as aphids (I can sit out there for an hour shooting them off with a water bottle.... why not use a hose you ask? well because then i run the risk of watering my downstairs neighbors' blind dog....which apparently doesn't know to get out from under the water... poor thing) watching my plants bloom and get bushy and tall is wonderful, and I'm always impressed with the speed at which each plant matures. Next year, it's all about companion planting. There will definitelybe marigolds among my tomatoes next year. for shizzy.

Tomato Row: Here are 9 of my 12 tomato plants all in a row along my deck. There's a kaffir lime tree in between some of them, but I doubt you can pick it out. These are all heirloom varieties, and they've grown lovely and full!


my pepper plant has lots of little flowers, and grows taller/bushier every day! It has three peppers already growing on it, and I see why my grandma got so excited to hear i was growing one. My grandma thinks of them as such nice clean plants. Compared with tomatoes, they are wonderfully compact and easy to take care of it seems. I will definitely plant more next year!

oh baby, it's you... shalalalalalalalaa

What might these be? What the cutelittlefurries is that you might ask...



They're baby Chinchillas! My chins Leia and Chewy had two babies last week. My parents were happy to report their arrival. Aren't they ADORABLE?! Here's a pic of mommy Leia with baby:



right around mother's day, Leia shoots into motherhood! She's looking tired already!

Speaking of babies... remember to vote for my NIKKO at the PURRRFECT KITTY CONTEST!
y'all do remember nikko, right? here he is playing birdwatcher (there's a bird feeder right outside our big window)


SP4

Thank you to my secret pal Vicki. She sent me one last package when she revealed herself! Lookie! There's a pretty braid of superwash merino for me to spin up. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about the embroidery patterns. I haven't embroidered before, but it seems like something I'm going to enjoy. She even got my some pretty candy colored beads which will be perfect for making fun spring/summer jewelry with memory wire!

Vote For Nikko!

My Nikko is up now for vote at the purrrfect kitty contest. Please stop by and vote for my baby!

Mother's Day weekend took over my life Saturday and Sunday. My family was supposed to go down to S. Cali to meet up with relatives to play Mah Jong, but some complications came up, so we stayed around the Bay Area instead. Saturday, I had a tasty dinner at Grand River Hot Pot Cafe in SF to celebrate mother's day with my Nai Nai.

(left to right: me, nai nai, my brother, my auntie helen, my auntie marion, daddy). Ervy took the picture. We decided this was a much nicer experience than going to hot pot city if only for the fact that we left and didn't reek of Hot Pot! It was good to see my Nai Nai. As an extra plus, I got to gossip about The OC with my brother ("Oh my god, it's getting so intense"- Will. Apparently he and his friends have weekly parties around the show, which was greatly interrupted by the President's rebroadcasted speech a couple weeks ago), and Desperate Housewives ("It's so obvious that Mrs Solis's baby is the gardener's" - Auntie Marion).

Sunday, my mom, grandma, ervy, will and I headed off to the Asian Art Museum in SF. We had a guided tour of many buddhist statues from Tibet, India, China, etc. The coolest/creepiest thing we saw was a teapot made from human skulls. ICK! There were also pipes made from human femurs.

(left to right in front of some bull statue: will, mom, me, grandma)

After another mommy day dinner, we headed out to Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy which was quite enjoyable! My favorite part included a crab that says, "Whee!"

Blah, now I'm here at work. I actually have my camera, so I thought I'd show y'all the ridiculous mammoth-sized archeaic vhs video recorders I use in the business school to record some of my experiments. They barely work. And they're bigger than my head.

oh yeah, and I'm a dork.

Thanks for all the well wishes on my bad day last week. I got my cake, and some tasty pizza. I didn't get a chance to knit on my long commute home, I was mainly grumbling away to myself, and trying to avoid crazy drivers who were as equally frustrated as I was. I have been knitting a bit though. Here's a hat I started on last week from my Coffee Break yarn. I'm not using a pattern (a decision that doesn't bode well for me), so we'll see if it miraculously fits in the end, or if I rip it out and actually swatch and make/find a pattern.

dude, when it's bad, it's bad

yesterday i had a 2 hour commute home. (I know some people do this every day, but my commute is normally 15 minutes). The Atherton cops blocked off Northbound El Camino and diverted us down small residential Atherton Streets. bummer.

Today, I woke up to an unhappy email from my boss. She claimed I must have done the data analysis incorrectly since we didn't get any results. So I spent my morning and early afternoon redoing all the analyses with another person, only to end up with the same thing, again.

Then, here's the kicker. I knocked over an open water bottle onto closed laptop of the grad student I work with. I actually had a bunch of paper towels on me (I was about to eat). so I immediately tried to dry it up. Luckily the laptop was closed (so no water went into the keyboard). She did admit it was partially her fault for leaving her open water bottle on the floor next to her laptop. But I am the one who knocked it over. So I told her I'd pay for anything if it needs to get fixed. Last I heard, it was "blinking" and she was trying to get all her work onto the psych server.

bad days kick my butt.

I need some Yumi Frozen Yogurt or a piece of cake so I can wash the day away in sugary goodness.

yay for exciting emails!

Woke up this morning to a nice surprise/request in my email box.

The associate editor of Family Circle Knitting was requesting samples of some of my products from Asha's Corner! I was of course skeptical at first (in case someone was trying to scam me) but the address I sent the samples to is actually the offices of soho publishing (Family circle knitting, vogue knitting, etc), so it appears to be legit. Woot!

Of course that doesn't mean I'll be in a magazine. I'm just getting reviewed for the possibility. But that's pretty neat in itself! Honestly, I was actually just happy that they even stumbled across my site! Neato!

Anyway, I spent this morning before work, busy throwing together the sample package, and waiting in line at the post office to overnight it to NY. Then I got to come in and learn how to handle the reaction time data I'm getting from participants. Exciting, no?

fruits
I bought an $11 fruit yesterday. Yes, it was one fruit. It better be a darn good fruit. It's a Cherimoya. (They look like artichokes to me!) I am interesting in seeing if I can grow the seeds and then convince my parents to plant it in their yard. Even if it does grow, pollinating this fruit tree sounds insane! Each flower is a male and a female (but at different times of the day). So in the morning, you may have 40 male flowers that you have to collect pollen from so that in the afternoon, when they turn into female flowers, you can pollinate them! I can see why the fruit is $11. Apparently, the only place in the US that has been able to grow them is California.

Ervy also picked up three passion fruits for me last night at Sigona's (Thanks Ursula for the tip!). I have to admit, I was amazed at the ratio of seeds to pulp/juice, but the juice IS super tasty. We made some yummy drinks with passion fruit juice, lime juice, and tequila... I got a wee bit too drunk last night! A good way to start off the week, no?

I also picked up a small yellow papaya to try, and a couple avocados. I plan to try to grow them all, and see what happens :)

I'll admit it

So my balcony is getting a bit full of plant life. This weekend I purchased the Bears Lime plant I wanted (after eyeing the blood orange varieties for a while).

Ervy and I undertook the task of repotting our large kaffir lime tree (large for my garden, probably like 6 ft tall) into a 20" container that will probably be its final home. It actually came free of its terra cotta pot fairly easily (wasn't horribly rootbound, but had enough of a wonderful root system to ease itself out). I potted my new small lime plant in the kaffir lime's old pot which will probably be the Bears lime plant's final home (if it survived the repotting, it's root system sucked... of course, that's why we bought it at home depot... yay for 1 yr guarantees!).

I've decided if my kaffir lime tree fruits again this year (as it looks like it's intending to do again), I will actually harvest the seeds from the fruit and try to raise some seedling kaffir lime plants. Kaffir limes are apparently a true citrus (not a hybid whose seeds will produce something like a grapefruit or whatever) which is lovely. I know many citrus grown from seed do not ever flower, but of course with a Kaffir Lime plant, the leaves are its main commodity, so it's not an issue.

I've discovered what the beautiful flowers behind the Woodside Deli are:


It is in fact the flower of a passion fruit! I've never actually eaten one of these treasures, but I hear from my coworker at the GSB that they're quite excellent! They also grow SUPERBLY from seed, and I think I may try this if I ever get ahold of the fruit. (I may fertilize some of the flowers behind the deli, and see if I can get ahold of some fruit that way...).

I have lofty goals for growing... but of course, as I mentioned, my deck is getting pretty full... Do most edible things in the garden require full sun? What container edibles prefer light but not direct sun? I'd like to plant whatever those could be on the other side of my house :)