spaazlicious

The major event of our week was going to Bay to Breakers; it was our first time.

We walked the last half of it with Kirsten and she took this pic at the finish.



On one hand, I wish I'd brought my camera because there were lots of fun things going on and some great pictures to be had--like the world's longest line of public urinators. There were probably twenty guys spaced three feet apart urinating into shrubs along the side of an apartment building...and a line of guys waiting to pee.

On the other hand, I am really glad I didn't bring the camera as I probably would have been so caught up in snapping pics. Instead, I kept my head swiveling, my eyes roving, and my hands knitting:



I still feel more in spinning mode than knitting--so I only feel slightly guilty for buying some tourist fiber at Deep Color where we met up with Brooke and her pups.



A 4oz. bag of Polworth dyed in various hues, I have no clue what I'll do with it. But check out the crimp intact in some of the locks.



And, um, today, I picked up well-skirted fleece of a one year old Lincoln with the terribly catchy and saccharinely sweetly sentimental name of #621.



I blame Mary-Kay for the 5¾ pounds of lanolin-y locks, she's just a bad influence and the skin side of the fleece she bought was just too sheeny pretty. I'm washing it in small batches, and some I'm going comb and spin, some for tailspinning, maybe trying some bouclé...there's a lot to work with and it's pretty soft. Lorraine Powell does a great job skirting the fleeces.

Back to Bay to Breakers...
I used the Google pedometer and mapped all of our walking that morning--we did just over 13 miles (!) so we feel all ready for the half marathon (we just need to run that distance instead of walk it, no biggie). Ha. ha. ha.

The linked article mentions the political costumes, but there were a diverse lot out there in the 75,000 strong crowd: there was a safety cone squad that actually ran through dressed in caltrans orange (one with a traffic cone on head, and Nick observed, "That's amazing, traffic cones are surprisingly heavy.") more naked people than I have fingers and toes (although the women I could count on one hand, and the ogle-worthy on one hand after a horrific sawmill incident, but nudism isn't about firmness of the flesh, it's about sunshine on the tingly bits) yet fewer than I expected, and way more Budweiser than I ever want to see again.

Flickr has lots of pictures under the baytobreakers tag. We didn't see this one, I think we would have pissed ourselves laughing. That pic is from last year, and I suppose it's just not done to do the wear the same costume twice in a row...(warning: NSFW, as are many of the B2B pics, apparently we had nudie blinders on, relatively speaking).

We totally forgot to bring our own alcohol, and we wandered through the crowd uncostumed feeling more like observers than participants (sounds like a bad thing, but just different, still fun) and I'm wondering what we should do next year. Qualify to be seeded runners, run it and walk back through the crowd and enjoy the show, or recruit more people and have a costume theme and our own keg in a shopping cart-rolling tiki bar-beer helmet hat (for the extremely lazy)? I liked the people who ran the route going the opposite way in salmon suits while screaming, "spawn! spawn!" although some fish were distracted and got caught up in a dance party. It was fun to meet up with Kirsten at Ashbury and Fell and wander through the crowd...so we may just do that again next year. Anyway, it was great to be back up in the bay area. It's probably unbelievable to anyone who hasn't lived there, but Oakland rocks. In fact, I'm saving that for another post. So many reasons we miss Oakland. And Sacramento too.

But we came home and were so happy to be back home with the dogs--it was surreal to go hiking in Redwood without them.

And I discovered my plants were traitors. I swear my seedlings doubled their size while my mom was babysitting, and the beneficial insects have started showing up--this ladybug is my favorite:



No spots, and juicy looking like a little mini half tomato...



Not sweet at all though. Crunchy caviar.

(kidding, kidding)

My banana peppers poked out for her:


My basils went nutso leggy and my amarinth stood up and said, "Howdy!"



On the gardening front, well, maybe another post.

We had a great time--it was neat to meet Kirsten and Brooke and eat at our favorite places and hike at Redwood again and smell that gorgeous rainfed eucalyptus smell.
On Solano Ave, we drove past a movie theater with a sign up on their marquee, "as if we didn't get enough in march: WATER." But it only rained on Friday and Sunday afternoon, so I don't know what they were complaining about. ;)

I guess y'all aren't into watching Everything You Ever Knew About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask with the Spanish subtitles on.

Usually I wouldn't be either, but either the sound production on that DVD was cr@p, or the sound production of my TV is cr@p, or my hearing is just cr@p or a combination of all above, but I have to watch DVDs with the subtitles on and for whatever reason Everything... only had French & Spanish subtitle options. How weird is that? We must protect hearing impaired English speakers from silly seventies movies! Parsing comedy from half heard and half understood is a little surreal.

So nobody guessed where "I was the first that said that the clitoral orgasm was not just for women!" was from--so I'm upping the ante. For 400 yards of sock yarn & a VHS copy of The Devil in Miss Jones (VHS! Trés kitsch!), guess what recently published (well, 2005 publication date for the hardcover) book contains this: "My final victim was sauteéd with carrots, onions, shallots, and garlic, doused with cognac, lit on fire, then baked in an oven with vermouth, tomato, parsley, and tarragon, and served atop rice." Yum.



So, I gave indigo another go. (I don't think it's supposed to look like this, but it resolved itself and I thought it was pretty. I had much better results this second time around and I credit Snowball's diligent, nearly daily urination into the indigo vat and yarn bucket. Very traditional, with excellent results. The second dipping yielded dramatic changes and if I wasn't a terrible blogger I'd have taken pictures. Better documentation soon.)

I don't have much else to mention, since everything else is in unphotogenic progress. Apparently, I need to go to a baseball game to really get some serious knitting done. No more town council meetings for me. (I went to the town council meeting to beef up the numbers so Coronado City Council wouldn't forget that a lot of people are watching what goes on with the animal shelter there.)

Joann's has started selling the bird toys the dogs love:



They have quite a wide range now with lots of calls, even a raven. But Tahoe got a turkey. I say "Tahoe got a turkey" because I bought it with him in mind, but once any toy passes the threshold it belongs to the Weaselgirl.

First "d'oh!" moment is going to a Coronado city council meeting without knitting. WTH was I thinking?

I didn't have anything I wouldn't have to look at a pattern for and I thought looking at a pattern would be rude, but it seemed as if at any given time there were whispered conversations going on while someone was talking, including the charming statement, "Well I wanted to get up and talk but I don't want to have to listen to any of this!" Which is kind of funny because at the beginning they give people time to come up and talk about anything they want, whether it's on the agenda later or not. So they could have talked without having to listen if they'd bothered to get their @sses there on time.

So, don't ever go to any political process without the handwork.

Then Amy sent me a fabulous perk-me-up package complete with whoopee cushion (because she's never met me in person she doesn't realise that a cushion of whoopee ain't got nuthin' on my noisy nalgas), a beautiful blue sheepy mug and a fantastically fat hank of Fleece Artist blue & green fingering weight bluefaced leicester two-ply.

I was so excited to be trying to bust outta my knitting funk that I cast on for a top down raglan--I did swatch though first to see what the st st gauge and drape was on US6s--and then an inch of 3x3 ribbing for the crew neck.



And you know, if you're going to use an easy-peasy fill in the blank customised raglan formula thingamajigger then maybe one should read the thing first. Oops.

I could have just started the stockinette and placed markers and jumped into the raglan part, but the worksheet has a dropped front collar and I wanted to try it as plotted.

I also didn't follow the measuring guidelines--I'm hoping that doesn't bite me in the butt later.

And also, if you mess up and add an accidental double increase where you shouldn't, don't try and balance with another one on the other side if they're both going to be on the front of an otherwise uninterrupted stockinette stretch. It's going to bug you, and if you don't want to rip back a couple rows to fix it, it's going to bug you extra hard a thousand or (four thousand or more) stitches later and you'll be even less likely or willing to rip back to fix it.

So I don't know what you'd do, but I'm calling the matching messups my persian carpet tribute to Allah.



At least I swatched.

Also, if you've been doing a fair bit of dyeing and you're finishing up and decide to do one last little experimental colorway batch and you leave it in the oven to cool off before washing it out...don't forget about it for three weeks.



I wondered what that damp moldy smell was. ;)

It's a bummer because the colorway turned out pretty cool on the sock yarn, and it would have been neat to see in the fiber. And of course, I hate wasting fiber and this has to go to the garbage. I mean there's Vegetable Matter and then there's vegetable matter. I'm happy enough to wash fecal matter from fleece, but I draw the line at mold.

Oh well.





Weird looking weasel dog reclining in Daddy's arms and bathed in midmorning light. it looks like she lost her ears in the laundry.