spaazlicious

Actual Knit Contentholy guacamole!
I swung over to Lakeside Knits after work the other day because I couldn't remember if the owner Clarese stocked Lamb's Pride Bulky for this felted bag project I'm futzing with and while she didn't, I lucked into some skeins of Elsbeth Lavold's Angora (which is really only 20% angora, but let's be honest here, that's a good thing) at 50% off (from 7.95, she doesn't mark up the yarns past suggested retail as far as I've seen).

I got "peacock blue," because if it's got cock in it, I'm all over it. Here's how far one skein will take you in the Child's hooded pullover pattern of Sirdar #283:



It's amazing how much yarn ribbing and cabling eat up compared to straight stockinette. I'm flying along on the second ball, here's a closeup of the yarn so you can see that the Angora isn't too disgustingly fuzzy. It will fuzz up more with wear and handling, so the cabling isn't going to go POP!POW!WHIZZ!BANG! but I don't care. The yarn is soft and fun to work with like the now discontinued CE Lana d'Oro but not as stretchy.



I am loving knitting this and it's a pattern I've had since we lived in Oakland and I fell in love with the handknit sample at Skein Lane in El Cerrito. It was just waiting for the perfect yarn.

++++Random Road Luck++++

Tuesday, Nick and I were driving on Interstate 8 West to pick up a friend for dinner (and fava beans and a nice chianti...) and off in the distance I saw this black bit go spinning across three lanes of traffic. I was driving about the speed of traffic (in San Diego, roughly ninety miles an hour, seriously) but I slowed the fu¢k down like a good defensive driver, then quickly realised that I was going to have to pretty much stop, which is definitely not a good thing to have to do in the fast lane in San Diego. Because that black thing was somebody's tire and it had come from the number one lane, bounced and hit a Saturn Vue which somehow bounced it sixty feet into the air to land back into the number one lane. My lane. The fu¢ker bounced in the lane three times before vaulting into eastbound traffic.

I suppose, if I had never seen it I could have gone driving blithely on and had it bounce in front of me, bounce up, then land behind me, because I am very lucky, but then I would have missed out on the mesmerising sight of roughly fourty pounds of large rubber projectile gallivanting across the freeway and that gut-clenching feeling of horrified anticipation of the worst.

Okay, and I'll admit: a sort of macabre voyeurism watching the other motorists react to the rogue tire, checking back and forth between the rearview mirror and the tire to make sure we weren't going to get hit from either direction.


¡Yo México!

Nick just went back to work on Wednesday night; he had a stretch of ten days off that went by way too fast and I loved every minute of it. My brother babysat Tuesday night lastweek while we stole away to Baja California, Méjico. (If you're a local who grew up listening to 91X you too may hear that woman's lyrical voice when you read that)and stayed at the Hotel Calafia, a historical landmark on the coast and not more than a half hour south of the border. We were probably the only guests of the hotel that night and the ocean was right outside our room. It's not on a swimming beach, but it was wonderful to fall asleep together listening to it.

I had some cockroach of the sea. Nick is right, it does look disgusting, yes?



The food wasn't great, but the view and the company was fantastic. We saw porpoises and what appeared to be otters (although are there otters this far south?) from where we sat.

This is a tiny slice of the view we had from our room.