travelling fool, part 2

Better late than never!

The Summer of Travel continued on to Boston, for my friend Mike’s wedding! Boston is a city I really like. Yeah, the streets don’t make a lot of sense, which is the kiss of death if you’re as navigationally-challenged as I am, but it’s got a lot of character and a lot of history, plus a lot of good places to eat.

Weddings are a good excuse to see friends and pig out. The ol’ Houston gang turned up to wish Mike well. Here’s a rather grainy picture ganked from Oki of the gang at Dali’s, a really good tapas place.

The wedding was perfect. The bride looked radiant, the groom didn’t look too bad either. The wedding banquet was fantastic (yum yum!) You’ll have to take my word on the food because my camera died at the banquet.

 

three cheers

I. My friend Lisa got married! I made a quick trip to Houston for the occasion. She looked gorgeous, the ceremony went off without a hitch, and the wedding banquet - OMG, I could sing praises for a long time about the food. Mmmm…..

Lisa (in red), Felix and Sandra (Lisa’s sister). The women are wearing the chi-pao, a traditional Chinese dress for special occasions, like weddings!

Lisa and Felix chose to have a traditional Chinese wedding banquet, which involves multiple courses. This was the first time many of the people at our table had ever partaken of a Chinese wedding banquet - I had fun “translating” what were in the yummy dishes. Fortunately, everyone at our table were good sports and refused to be cowed by my sometimes rather, umm, interesting descriptions of the ingredients. More photos here.

the lobster of happiness - mine, mostly

II. I got to hang out with the Houston gals!

Kelly and I took a trip to Twisted Yarns, where a skein of scrumptious Mad Tosh yarn (so soft!) fell into my hands and refused to return to the shelves. I’ve been hearing plenty of wonderful things about this yarn all over the blogosphere. What kind of knitter would I be if I left that poor skein of yarn back at the store?!

Madeline Tosh in Robin’s Nest

I also got my twisted (violently!) by Kelly and managed to take a skein of Wollmeise yarn off her hands. Can you believe how rich the color is?

Wollmeise in Farn - dark

There was a trip to Chinatown with Amy, Liz and Susan (with Brian in tow). Not only did they allow me to order for them at the restaurant, they also allowed themselves to be dragged into the Asian market with all its, umm, exotic treasures.

Doesn’t look like any bird I’ve seen

III. Look at what I got in the mail the other day -

Isn’t it cute? The project pouch is the work of the lovely ladies at Piddleloop. For the longest time, I’ve been looking for an excuse to purchase their stuff. Then I saw the cute owls on their Etsy store and found my excuse. They also sent along some extra goodies - these cute stitch markers and sheep-y tags. There was candy too, but that ended up in my tummy lickety split.

 

is all good

Just got back from Houston.  Technically, I was there for a seminar, but really…!

Amy graciously let me crash at her place.  Yay!  Serious fun.  So glad I got to hang out with her, Kelly, Susan, Liz (sadly, blogless), Lisa, Mo (however briefly) and the rest of my H-town peeps.   I miss you guys! 

 

largesse

Dreary on the outside -

Merry on the inside -

 

Amy and her fabulous family adopted me for Christmas this year. I had a wonderful time! Lots of good food, good conversation and a riproaring game of Monopoly in which I managed to out-Trump the Donald. I recommend trying your best to get yourself adopted by the Singletons!

There was, of course, quality knitting time with Amy. I managed to finish half a pair of socks and change. Not just any ‘ol pair of socks, but a toe-up sock with short row heels. Behold the wonders of the magic cast-on. Isn’t it purty?

My first attempt at a short row heel won’t be winning any beauty contests though. Inspite of Amy’s patient instructions and this great tutorial, I still manged to end up with holey heels. Because I. Can’t. Read. My listening comprehension apparently ain’t that hot either. It doesn’t look so bad in the picture below, but you can see the holes on the heel when I try ‘em on. I’m chalking this one up to Character Building

There was totally unexpected largesse from wonderful people all around. Among other things - this awesome shirt from Amy (which totally appeals to my warped sense of humor and style) to go with the awesome yarn she dyed herself!

Koiguuuuu from Amy’s mama. Can’t stop touching yarn!

A super generous gift card to REI from the people at work. My boss says that she suggested a gift card to a more ummm, upscale, sophisticated place like Ann Taylor and promptly got vetoed by the rest of the department. And I quote, “She (as in me) wouldn’t know what to do if she entered a store like that.” Ahhh… they know me well

Last, but certainly not the least, from the SnB chicks -

This was totally unexpected. I was very touched. The organized, resourceful folks that they are, they managed to track down a yarn store in Erie for me!

My life is pretty chaotic right now, but I feel so lucky to have such wonderful, rockstar friends!

In other news, the movers are coming later today to take my stuff. I won’t have computer access for a few days. See you when I resurface in the frozen tundra of Erie.

 

 

shiny, plastic people

Dragged Hui Ji to see the Body Worlds 3 exhibit at the Museum of Natural Sciences. The exhibit was ending soon and I really wanted to see it. Of course, it seemed like a bunch of other people had the same idea as we did. The exhibit hall was super crowded!

For those of you unfamiliar with Body Worlds, it’s a traveling exhibit of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using plastination. As someone who’s taken (and taught) several Anatomy classes and done a fair amount of dissecting, I found this exhibit pretty fascinating. It was neat to see these perfectly dissected and preserved specimens, being able to look at them from all angles, and seeing how they all fit together. The exposed human body as art, I suppose. Among the exhibits - a man kneeling in prayer holding his heart in his hands, a man carrying his skin.

There were several instances in the exhibit where healthy organs were positioned next to diseased ones. Wow. Made me want to take better care of myself. Also, nuggets of anatomy trivia everywhere! My fount of useless and semi-useless information overfloweth!

 

“a very ancient and fish-like smell…”

The title’s a quote from “The Tempest.” One of the offerings of this year’s Houston Shakespeare Festival (the other was Titus Andronicus). I try to catch both offerings every year - I’m not a theater connoisseur but I’ve usually enjoyed HSF’s interpretations. And the plays are free, which is even better.

Anyway, the Tempest - there is a shipwreck, magic and monsters. There’s a love story in there too. I thought this was pretty good. Sidenote - my favoritest comic book series the Sandman had a memorable story that was loosely based on this play - issue #75, for you true believers. The picture on the right is the cover from that particular issue - cover art by the fantastic Dave McKean.

On to Titus Andronicus. Pretty bloody. Dismemberment, check. Rape, check. Massacres, check. Turban-type headgear, check. Of the two plays that the HSF stages, one usually has a relatively straightforward staging, and the other, well, has a more “creative” re-imagining. Ahem. Titus Andronicus was the latter. There was plenty of symbolic devices in this one, probably to make the onstage carnage less monotonous. Gore wrapped in sexy verses.