Saturday On Call

A nifty cartoon from 'Garfield Minus Garfield', which I really enjoy:







I know when to go out
And when to stay in
Get things done
--David Bowie, 'Modern Love'

Ah. Saturday morning, chilling with Gabriel and a cup of java. What could be better? Gabriel is happy--he's singing and tapping me on the cheek with his beak. I am marshaling myself to get up and do some more housework. It's a three day weekend, and since I am on-call this weekend, I have to stay within an hour radius of the hospital. This makes an ideal time to cocoon.

P went out for walkies. Me? I am getting my ducks in a row. We have a new washer, so I can do some laundry. We have potential company coming, so the house needs to be tidy (We're mostly there). I have knitting projects at hand, so I need to choose where to focus. We have a shopping list, so P and I can go shopping for groceries.

We have committed to starting the South Beach Diet on Monday. As P says, "I cringe to hear myself say it.", but we both feel like we have reached critical mass (emphasis on the 'mass' part). We have friends in Oregon who tried it and it worked for them. Mostly P and I eat well anyway, what with the farm and our grain CSA, but poundage is a problem, so it's time to focus. An at-home weekend makes for a good time to do some pre-prep for lunches, shopping for appropriate snacks and the like. Wish us luck!

On the knitting front, I am feverishly working to get things done before the next Northcoast Knittery contest. My scarf turned out nicely, but I am facing some very stiff competition

Here is my entry:




















My competition all crafted up very different scarves. Mine is the only felted piece. There is one lovely lace scarf, a really well done mosaic knit piece, two crocheted scarves, including one made by a 91-year-old gal, that is amazing and really showcases the yarn, and one plain knit mohair with a copper metallic edge that is very pretty. The public will choose and I guess there are a lot of votes already in. My thought is that the lace will win. Still, my scarf hangs proudly with the others, and I am pleased with it. They will announce the winner in the next week or so.

There will be a shawl contest this summer and I am feeling ambitious about the pattern. I think I want to do it despite the things I have to do in my knitting basket. I am using this down time to try and get things done or ready to go, so the bulk of my time can be used for the shawl if I do the contest.

Still, it's slow going. I have mostly picky or boring things to do, and it's difficult to stay focused. Most of the things I am working on are items I have blogged about before, so this list is yet another rehash.

I thought I was done with Belinda, but, despite following the pattern, the width wasn't right so I had to unpick and need to add 22 more rows. This isn't trivial. It IS very annoying however. Fortunately had some scrap kidsilk haze yarn of the same color, so I don't actually have to BUY more yarn. I was not 100% happy with Clapotis, and I didn't want repeat that sentiment. I want to finish something I am totally happy with, so that means more knitting.

I am plodding along on the back of Jiada, and am almost done, but it is godawful tedious plain stockinette. I am resorting to taking it to work for my lunch hour project so that I have no choice but to work on it. Jiada or nothing, so I can at least get the back done. I might then back-burner it for a bit.

Zarah is being sewn up slowly, but it has been difficult getting a nice seam on it. Still, once the sleeves are done, I can try and fix the collar, which is the last challenge.

I am also doing a bag to be felted on big needles. It is a new project--the Tinkknit 5-Alarm bag-- that should be a reasonably quick knit. I also got the specific hardware last weekend during a trip to Oregon Leather in Eugene, Oregon. That place is a crafter's paradise; they have metal findings, hides, dyes, etc.

P and I both liked Eugene. There are several really good bookstores, two very nice yarn stores (OK, P wasn't fired up by those), a good kitchen store, and a nice downtown. It's a typical college town, with all the fun and funky goods a place like that has. We will definitely drop by there again for a visit.

I know, another very knitting-oriented post, but that be my thing these days. Now it's off to do some laundry. Have a great Memorial Day, everyone!

Watching the Clothes

Watching the Clothes

Oh, Saturday night
Mmm, everyone's having fun
I'm down at the laundromat
Trying to get my washing done
Like I done before
Time and time again
Watching the clothes go 'round
Another week sees it's end

Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round

Oh, I've been working hard
Mmm, trying to make some money
Would you like sour cream
On your potato, honey?
I been kissing ass
Trying to keep it clean
Serving the middle class
Yeah, it's a clean routine

Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round

There go the whites
Mmm, getting whiter
There go the colors
Getting brighter
There go the delicates
Through the final rinse
There goes my Saturday night
I go without a fight

Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round
Watching the clothes go 'round

--Chrissie Hynde, The Pretenders

Hwaet! Last weekend the water heater died. Yesterday the washing machine died. If bad things happen in threes, one more appliance is circling the drain. ARGH! My brother just threw in that the next thing to die will be the dishwasher. At least the washer died AFTER I felted my scarf for the local scarf contest.

With a weekend trip in the offing and clothes to be washed, I did what any other desperate person would do: I scrounged all over the house, in pockets, in decorative dishes, on my dresser for every quarter I could find.

Fortunately for me, one of the linacs at work ,went down today and I cheerfully volunteered to take one for the team and go home. I had an ulterior motive; daylight hours at a public laundromat might be slightly less scary than after dark. (I also have knitting group this weekend and idn't want to miss it! Not tonight when I turn in my scarf!!)

P asked rather insistently if I wanted him to go with--he was in protective mode. Frankly, I said yes. I had a TON of laundry (well maybe 40-50 pounds, about 4 very large loads), and he could help me carry it. So he got me settled, ran some errands and came and got me. Since the laundrette was also in the same complex as my current fave Mexican restaurant (Luzmilla's--tasty beans, really good salsa!), we got lunch and some Mexican Cokes to go. Not too bad for an afternoon.

I learned some things about modern laundromats today:

1) This one no longer use quarters. You can use any form of money you like to buy value on a card. I find this thoroughly civilized. You bring in cash and buy a card. Any money left, they'll cash out for you. Neat!
2) Front-loading machines use A LOT LESS detergent than their top-loading cousins. I found this out the hard way. I couple of tablespoonfuls will do. This begs another question: am I oversoaping my wash at home? I bet I am.
3) Watching clothes in a front loading washer is almost as soothing as watching a fishtank.
4) My local laundromat has free wi-fi, so if I go again I can bring my laptop and surf.
5) The local laundry place also has ultra large capacity machines--double, triple or quadruple load sizes, so now I know where I can go to wash my king-sized comforter.

All useful information, I think!

I am drying my duds at home as I blog this. I only spent an hour washing all my stuff. One load had to be run twice at the laundrette, since I got medieval with the soap, and I re-ran it to rinse it more. The kind people there let me do it for free--can't beat that with a stick for service!!

Well, there goes the dryer--another load bites the dust...

Spring in My Backyard

I love my backyard.

It's not just the generic, featureless space you would expect from a rental house. It's fairly small, but packed with botanical goodies.As I showed before in a Fall post from last year, neat things grow here. It's Spring, and in HumCo, that means rhododendrons. The rhododendrons in my backyard are going nuts. In fact, they are going nuts all over town. even the wild rhodies are starting their bloom cycle; the wild variety are usually a few weeks later blooming than the hybrids. Yards all over town have them here. So does landscaping in front of businesses. In this country, rhododendrons seem to be not just a staple, but a requirement.

The rhodies here are both pink, but different. One is a clear, cotton candy pink that fades to a light baby pink as the bracts age. The other is a warmer color-- almost more a light red than a pink along the edges to fading in the center to a pinkish white. The stand in each corner of the backyard; the red edge is on the left and the pink on the right, with an apple tree in between. The rhodies are tall shrub for--each is 10-15 feet tall and in full bloom they make an impressive sight.

The white clematis that I posted pictures of last Novemberr has also exploded, and is mingling with a light pink small flowered climbing rose that almost looks like 'Cecile Bruner', but can't be since it blooms almost constantly. The yard currently has a rather wild, untended cottage garden look to it, and I need to get out and do some weeding and grooming, but still is a sweet, secret place to be. Little things just crop up all over the yard and it makes me happy!!

White clematis and roses on the right side fence:
















The red-edged rhodie in the left-hand corner:




















Closeups of bracts of the red-edged rhodie:


































The pink rhodie in the right-hand corner and some closeups:











































I really love the Springtime!!

Fun with Citrus

What do you get when you mix orange peel, a sharpie and a cute goofball?

You get THIS:















I've got a guy with a sense of humor--lucky, lucky me!!!

I call this picture "Humboldt County Dental Hygiene". Actually there are some excellent dentists here--mine is one. I get my new crown next Monday. Novocaine shots--my favorite (not!).

A Grand Day Out in Crescent City

It's a lovely late Sunday morning, and here I am blogging. The blogging is good, because it is distracting me from hearing "Arthur's Theme" by Christopher Cross inexplicably running through my head. Why THAT song? I hate that kind of soft '80's pop crap with a passion. Why not a GOOD '80's song, like some Devo or B52's? Oh well, at least it's not Elton John and Kiki Dee singing "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart", which I view as the musical equivalent of the ebola virus.

After the prodigious quantities of rain we had a week or so ago, Nature decided we needed a break. Fortuitously, the break fell on a Saturday, so P and I decided to head north. Our previous day-out foray a couple weeks back had been south to the beach outside Petrolia that also serves as the northern trailhead for the Lost Coast Trail. Logically, it seemed to me, that we should head north. The goal: Tolowa Dunes State Park. We had driven past many times, and usually one of us would remark, "We really need to go there sometime.".

So, with the promise of a good weather day, off we went after a tasty Los Bagels bagel breakfast in Eureka Oldtown. The weather was really good--some lingering coastal fog that was burning off fast. The countryside is still very green and the native rhododendrons in Del Norte Redwoods State Park were just starting to bloom.

We drove straight to Crescent City from Eureka with no stops. it's 80 miles, and some of the road is very narrow and winding. It takes 1.5 hours to get there and there is no getting around that time with the roads the way they are.

Crescent City is an odd little town. It's the seat of Del Norte County and contains the bulk of the county population at 8805 people. It is not the northernmost city on the California coast (the northernmost city, I believe, is Smith River.), but the geography north of town really starts to seem more Oregonian than Californian. If you know the landscape at all, you can recognize that you are in a transition zone. There are still redwood trees, but everything else screams 'Oregon Coast!!"

Unlike a lot of the towns in this neck of the woods, Crescent City doesn't have a really well defined main drag. Like Eureka, Highway 101 has been turned into two one way streets, running north or south, lined with businesses. Unlike Eureka, in Crescent City, a lot of those buildings are fairly new. There also is not an equivalent of the Eureka Oldtown, which has that old-timey Main Street feel. I think this lack is due to the '64 tsunami which trashed a chunk of the city and took out a lot of the buildings there at the time. It's an old harbor--the lighthouse there has existed since 1856--and it FEELS like there should be more older buildings, but there aren't.

Still, P and I have driven grids in the city streets in the past to see what's there, so we have a decent idea of what local businesses are available. In any case, I know there is a local yarn store! It's called A Perfect Yarn, and I had to stop . I spent a very happy 10 minutes browsing; it's a neat little place! Another reason to like Crescent City.

We ate a nice lunch at The Good Harvest Cafe and then headed for Tolowa Dunes north of town. It was bright and clear, but a bit breezy. We navigated the map and found the central entrance that has beach access. It was a tiny trial driving there. The road was flooded in one spot with standing water that turned out to be a bit deeper than we thought. Still, we got through it. The beach was nice, but EXTREMELY windy. Too windy, even for kites. We picked about for 10 minutes and bailed looking for a more sheltered area.

We checked out the north, but it is a hike to the beach from there. The same was true for the south, but there are some nifty wetland trails and it would be worth going back with with some binocs and a bird book.

A meadow by the South trailhead of Tolowa Dunes. Look at the great color mix; the red is grass seed heads:















We then drove back to town and decided to check out a couple of antique stores. Our first choice was closed, but the second, Sylvia's Attic, was not. What a great place! The shop was very well organized and had everything from the pricey to the affordable. The vintage kitchenware was fun to poke through and there was a lot if it. P and I went a bit bonkers, but we kept finding things we had been looking for. We found (and purchased) a set of stainless steel Turkish kebab skewers, a pyrex double boiler (the find of the day!!), a silver water pitcher, a free standing strainer with legs and a wooden masher, a spice rack, a complete set of tiny steel crochet hooks (guesses who those are for), a book on local culture and some yellow seed beads. The owner, Sylvia, is a friendly lady, transplanted from L.A--Beverly Hills, more specifically. She had quite a few stories and I now have the distinction of knowing someone who has taken her kids trick-or-treating with William Shatner. Her daughter was buds in high school with Miguel Ferrer and Billy Mumy (of 'Lost in Space' fame)--she showed as a picture of how they look today in a group shot. Quite a slice of fun! Also, a store to go back to. She had Corningware lids and I think she has one of a size I need...

We then headed for Battery Point lighthouse. Since the tide was out, we were able to walk out to Battery Point Lighthouse and we took a quite nice little guided tour. The lighthouse is still functioning and manned, as well. You can only get to it at low tide, though. The interior is very cool, with vintage furnishings. It straddles the line between working facility and museum. Another place worth seeing.

We tried to go to the Rumiano Cheese shop, but it was already closed, so we toodled off to the north end of Pebble Beach for some agate hunting. The agates there are small, but there are LOTS. We found a total of 257 agate pebbles in all different colors. Check out our haul:



















At this time of year, it stays light very late, so it was already 7pm and we were hungry. P had read of a place called Bistro Gardens on Yelp.com that was well reviewed so we went. It was casual, but the prices were quite steep. I had the special--Salmon with scallops in a champagne cream sauce. P had shrimp and andouille sausage that also came in a cream sauce. We had an appetizer of polenta with marinara. Well, I was underwhelmed, considering the prices. All the sauces were too heavy and salty. My fish was extremely well cooked--not too done or underdone, but tasted fishy, smacking of a low end supplier. For $24.95, I expected more. The presentation was pretty with smashed spuds and julienned veggies, but pretty doesn't save bad sauce. obvious The chef DOES know something about cooking, but I was quite disappointed. A gal at the table next to ours had the special ,too, and she said it was almost a " religious experience" which was what convinced me to try it. I guess I am not ready to get religion yet. I'd be tempted to go back for a second chance if it wasn't so spendy. All ageism aside, the salty sauces hinted that the food was geared to an older crowd used to eating fairly well. I remember my grandparents late in life salting their food to DEATH because that was what they could taste. There was even a 4:30-6:00 early bird menu, although they menu refrained of specifically calling it that. Well, so much for Bistro Gardens. Still, I had a nice meal with my sweetie and the view was good.

All in all, Crescent City is a cute, friendly little burg and it's worth spending the day there--there is a lot to see. P took some great shots--more than me. Click the link to see them at his Flickr site.

Sunset over Freshwater Lagoon on the way home from our Grand Day Out:

Rainfall Record

That weather bomb I showed a pic of on Monday the 4th yielded a rainfall record for the city of Eureka: 1.74 inches in 24 hours. The previous record was 0.83 inches in 1889. That's a whole lotta rain!

April Showers...and Mo

April showers bring May flowers... Wait... it IS May! So what is up with THIS...??

















It is really coming down out there right now. Here I am all snug in the house--early shift at work has me out of there by 3:30. The 6 AM alarm ain't so great, but the early departure is really nice.

Today, May 4th, is the 31st anniversary of the birth of my darling cat Mo (short for Mohandas K. Gandhi--I was a young, impressionable teen when I got Mo, and thought Gandhi was a Numero Uno Dude, so I named my cat after him. Rather misnamed, since Mo was all swaggery machismo with very little pacific about his personality. I still think MKG is a great man, though.) Mo was born in 1978, out of a white cat named Chaos, one of four kittens. I saw him and felt a bond immediately. I can't explain it; I just had a good feeling and begged both my parents and Chaos' person to let me have him. Sometimes it's like that with animals.

Mo had a big hiccup at age 2--he was running laps on the flat part of the roof at my folks' house, slipped and fell about 15 feet. He blew out his left knee and tore his diaphragm muscle about 75% loose from his chest wall. My parents, bless them, paid for expensive surgery and his vet Dr. Silver did a great job--Mo lived another 16 years after his accident, dying of kidney failure in 1996 at the age of 18. If you look closely at the picture, you can just barely see the midline scar of his surgery. He is about 10 years old here, in his characteristic roadkill pose that either says "It's too ****ing hot!" or "Here's my belly, notice me!!!"

Mo had one of those spirits that I truly hope I run into again in this lifetime. He was one of the mellowest, quirkiest cats I have ever known and he and I loved each other as only a cat and a cat lover can. I was definitely his person and I still feel priveleged. He was totally unfazed by other people, though and would work a house party of 20-30 people like a seasoned master.

"Hi. Welcome to my house."
"Thanks for sitting--I was looking for some lap."
"Tasty appetizers, yes? Don't mind if I do."

The January before he died, one of my roommates had a Superbowl party and Mo did his typical working of the room. Mo died on June 30th, 1996. The following January, another Superbowl party was in the works and one of my roommate's friends, who had attended the year before, asked "if that cat Mo was going to be there?", and when he was told that Mo had died he replied, "No point in having a party, then.". Mo was that cool of a cat.

So, Happy Birthday, Mo, wherever you are!!