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.

This has been turning out to be the Summer of Travel. There has been much airport hopping and snacking on bad airport food. Also the inevitable travel delays that crop up when I take to the open skies - the Travel Curse is strong in that one and so forth.

Here’s where I’ve been the past several weeks.

At the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. Doing some trail building and trail maintenance work at several national parks in the Bay Area, as part of an American Hiking Society crew. A great excuse to see national parks. Getting dirty and doing heavy manual labor isn’t so bad if you wake up to sights like this -

I’ve now added park ranger to my list of back-up career plans. I have this urge to set up a tent and just live in the Muir Woods.

A few of the people who were on the trail crew had never been to San Francisco before, so I got to tag along and do some tourist-y sightseeing.

We were able to stay at the Presidio for a few nights. It turns out that George Lucas is leasing some parts of the Presidio for Lucasfilms. Of course as soon as I heard that, I HAD to go see! My membership in the nerd union would’ve been revoked if I left without having my picture taken at the Yoda fountain.

Notice that the Ravelry shirt made it into the picture too!

My friends Ken and Kathleen had a baby! The little one’s name is Jacob and he’s perfect.

I’d be kicked out of the knitting union if I didn’t try to knit something for him.

Pattern: Bunny Hop baby blanket (Rav link)
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in Lime, 2.5 skeins. Size 8 Denise Interchangeables.

This was actually the first time I’ve used Cotton-Ease. I guess I can understand the uproar that happened when Lion (misguidedly) discontinued it a couple of years ago. The yarn is soft and washes like a champ. I have to say I’m not a fan of the current color selection - I think many of the colors look pretty washed out. I do like the lime color though. The baby blanket pattern was fun to knit - I pretty much knit it without any modifications. For the life of me, I couldn’t seem to memorize the pattern repeats though, so this didn’t turn out to be mindless knitting as I had initially hoped. I’m pretty pleased with the results though, and I hope Jacob enjoys his blankie.

Umm…hi!

Been a while, hasn’t it? First off, thank you for all your well wishes. The pneumonia, stubborn little thing, has been banished. Unfortunately, allergy season is in full swing. Blech. Better sneezing and sniffling than wheezing and gasping for air though.

Things are generally on the upswing. To fill you in quickly - The Bodies exhibit was just in Pittsburgh, and my co-worker D and I drove down to see it. We’d been meaning to see this for a while, but waited until the day before it ended to actually go. Apparently, lots of other people were slacking too. Witness the line to get in -

Since I teach a gross anatomy class, I was pretty interested in their preservation techniques and how they staged the exhibits. The Bodies exhibit is very similar to the Body Worlds exhibit I saw in Houston, but this one is put on by a different group, and I guess there was some controversy associated with it coming to Pittsburgh.

Then off to the Bay Area for work-related stuff. Busy and slightly brain cell killing, but I love the Bay Area! I got in some great aikido training (the bruises were totally worth it!). And you see signs like this on the BART -

Finally once I got home, look at what was waiting for me!

Mmmm…yarn! My beloved Houston SnB’ers recently had a yarn swap. I was telling Amy that I was just a teensy bit jealous that I wasn’t there to join the fun, and lo and behold, Kelly and the girls sent me a box of bright yarn goodness. Thanks, guys! Y’all know just how to make a girl feel loved

Pneumonia, with a side of costochondritis - probably because of all the coughing.

The timing sucks - I have too much to do!

Ick.

Today is Last Day to File Your Income Tax Day, also known around these parts as my birthday! So in honor of said birthday, I decided to stay up an entire 24 hours. Just to see if I could, and also to better savor the birthday feeling.

12:01 a.m. Birfday! Birfday! Another year older (ugh), though not necessarily wiser. Eat ice cream to celebrate.

12:45 a.m. Wow, you can watch Law and Order marathons at all hours of the night.

1:15 a.m. Get call from my dad (Chinese in italics)

Dad: Hellooo? Helloooo?
Me: Pa? Is that you?
Dad: YES! This is your FATHER! Happy birthday!
Me: Thank you. You remembered. (My dad is notorious for forgetting my birthday.)
Dad: Yes, I had our secretary remind me this year. Are you having a good lunch? Did you get yourself something good for your birthday meal?
Me: Pa, it’s 1 in the morning here.
Dad: Oh, I thought it was 1 in the afternoon. Because it’s lunchtime here at the office.
Me: Pa, there’s a 12 hour difference. 1 in the afternoon there is 1 in the morning here. (My dad lives halfway around the world; I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve told him that)
Dad: Well then, have a good time at lunch…

4:00 a.m. Oh look, an Eff Oh (picture taken later during the day)

Pattern: Koolhaas, by Jared Flood, from IK Holiday Gifts ‘07
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Pure Cashmere #10 (Orange), 3 skeins. Size 6 and 8 Denise interchangeables, and size 8 Inox DPN’s

I love the hat! I love the pattern. I wish I could say the same about the yarn. I mean, it’s cashmere, and I like it OK, but I wasn’t impressed by the yarn. First, there’s only about 49 yards per skein, and to me it didn’t feel any softer than baby cashmerino. Maybe I was expecting too much, but cashmere! I have to say though that the cables really pop with this yarn.

I CO 96 stitches instead of the called for 104, and made 5 repeats of the pattern because I wanted the hat to cover my ears. There are a few boneheaded mistakes, but they’re near the top of the hat, and I was too lazy to rip back. I did run out of yarn at the very top, but couldn’t justify buying another skein of the DB, so I used leftover orange Lamb’s Pride worsted - you can kind of see it in the picture. I like it - it looks like the hat has a bright(er) orange dot on top.

8:00 a.m. Get ready for work. Include many opportunities for procrastination - surf the internets, wash dishes, make up birthday wishlist…

9:00 a.m. Show up at work. Surprise co-workers by being more than 15 minutes early for class. Much teasing about impending old age.

12:00 nn There is cookie cake! With more frosting than the picture shows. Eat lots of frosting for lunch. Mmmm…

2:00 p.m. Students sing Happy Birthday many times, in hopes of convincing me to cancel class. Does not work.

6:30 p.m. Stagger home. Why is it still freezing here? Sun, where are you?!! Good thing I finished a hat today.

7:00 p.m. Cook yummy seafood corn chowder. Eats lots of it. People who know me know that I am mildly infatuated with corn. This felt like a good meal to make for birthday.

8:30 p.m. Birthday well wishes from fam and friends. Yay! Grouse about lack of presents Buried among well wishes is news of family crises. Ick.

11:20 p.m. Feel sad that birthday will be over in less than an hour.

12:05 a.m. Made it! 24 entire hours. Birthday may be over, but birthday week is still in full swing.

Last week, while hanging out with Nana in Detroit -

Me: May I drive the car for you, Nana?

Nana: No, you’re not familiar with my car.

Me: I know how to drive, Nana.

Nana: You really should practice driving in the parking lot first.

Hi there! Been a while, hasn’t it?

El Salvador was great! I had a good time with my students, co-workers, and the folks from Voices across Borders, the group which facilitated the trip. When we left here, there was so much snow. As I turned onto Chris’ street (I was hitching a ride with her to the airport), I found myself sharing the road with a snowmobile. Just look at the contrast between frozen Erie and San Salvador.

The bulk of this trip was spent traveling around rural areas, meeting with the community, and doing health and physical therapy workshops in collaboration with students from the University of El Salvador. I came back tired, very tan and filled with respect for the Salvadorans’ warmth and resiliency. My Spanish though, is still mediocre. A few highlights and random observations from the trip:

- There’s a lot of things in El Salvador that remind me of the Philippines. The people are hospitable and slightly fatalistic (as in, God will provide, even if we’re in deep doodoo). The pollution in the city is really bad, but the pollution makes for spectacular sunsets.

No one knows how to drive well, traffic signs (and traffic lights) are mere decoration and pedestrians put their lives on the line when they cross the street. Also, politics is a really, really popular topic - many of the locals I spoke to seemed to be more well versed on the US presidential primaries than some of the people I was on the trip with. Disparaging the government seems an equally popular pasttime as well.

- The disparity between rich and poor is pretty astounding. One day, on our way home from a planning session, we drove by this…I can only describe it as a shanty town…. The bus driver told us that the houses (more like giant boxes, really) sprang up overnight after someone printed an ad in the local paper that you could stake a claim on this piece of land. Of course, the landowner denies he ever authorized it, but the people refused to move. It’s been over a year since this started, and there’s still a lot of shacks. Without running water or electricity.

- You will get fried and crispy if you spend 15 hours in the back of an open pick-up truck. Especially if you miss a spot/s while slathering on the sunblock. The irony of this whole thing? While I’m trying to find some shade, Pat, who’s sharing the back of the truck with me, is busily slathering on suntan OIL. Because “we all have to die of something, and I’d like to die warm.” Heh.

When the wind hits you just right though, as you’re careening down the highway, it feels like you’re flying.

- We managed to take out the power of an entire village one night. Because someone needed to bring a hair dryer (and a curling iron) while we were out in the middle of nowhere rural El Salvador. This understandably caused a lot of consternation among the townspeople, especially since we didn’t tell the village chief that someone from our group caused the power outage because she JUST HAD TO HAVE good hair.

- I have a newfound appreciation for running water and a flushing toilet. Staying with families in the countryside meant living in places without running water. Or a toilet. This was the outhouse for the family I stayed with. The door to the outhouse was a garbage bag taped to one side of the structure. There’s also a pig on the premises. To help with the umm….composting. Now, I pride myself on being a super laid back traveler, able to adapt to almost anything. The pig was a bit much though.

To be continued. In the meantime, some more stories and pictures here.

It’s a bit weird to see that baseball season is only 45 days away when it’s eleventy million degrees below zero right now and there’s tons of snow as far as the eye can see.

In the meantime, I’m off to El Salvador for work, where it’s eleventy million degrees above zero! Catch you later!

A list of things I never expected to encounter while I was in Nashville recently for some work stuff -

1. getting evacuated because of a tornado

While the rest of the country was busying itself with Super Tuesday, a number of tornadoes were tormenting the Nashville area. Unfortunately, because the conference I was attending was held inside a hermetically sealed, climate controlled biosphere - the convention center, hotel, and connecting mall were all enclosed by a plexiglass dome! - I had no idea that outside, the winds were howling and the rain was pouring. Until 1:00 a.m., when the fire alarm went off, and the hotel staff started pounding on doors to evacuate the hotel. We were led to the bowels of the hotel basement, along with other sleepy/ grumpy/ bored hotel guests. I think the evacuation was more of a safety precaution and the hotel wasn’t in any real danger of being swept away by a tornado. However, I would’ve been much less grumpy if the fire alarm didn’t proceed to go off 2 more times in the dead of the night!

See? Hermetically sealed!

2. seeing a 10 foot plant walking towards you

The day after the tornado evacuation brouhaha, while my friend Jill and I are catching up, I spot a tall, leafy plant walking towards us. I have to do a double take. Turns out, it’s one of the attractions in the convention center. The plant’s actually a performer covered in leaves and green make-up, walking on stilts and manipulating another pair of stilts as “branches.” Really cool, and at the same time, slightly creepy looking. Particularly when she wraps her leafy limbs around posts and makes like ivy.

Needs a lot of coordination, also, lots of green make-up

3. actual knitting happened. Complete with finished product!

I’ve been in knitting ennui lately. Dreary weather (I am ready for winter to be over!), crazy work schedule and the occasional life blues have all conspired to sap my knitting mojo. So imagine my surprise when I actually finished something!

Pattern: Bloody Mary by Sandra Park
Yarn: Koigu KPPM color #12060, 2 skeins. Size 2 Crystal Palace bamboo DPN’s

This was my first time working with Koigu. There’s already a lot of love out there for Koigu. Let me join the bandwagon. Koiguuuu, so soft and squishy and nice to knit with. The yarn was a generous gift from Amy’s mom 2 Christmases ago. This particular colorway was so color-rich that I was afraid it was going to pool like crazy. The slipped stitches of the Blood Mary pattern though, seems to have done the trick. Also, I really like how the slipped stitch rib leaves these raised ribs. Yeah, it’s a pair of ribbed socks, but it’s got some pizazz!

These socks had been languishing in the unfinished pile for a while. I started them in September 2007, when we went to the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival. And then they just sat there, unfinished and neglected. These were supposed to be my travel knitting when I went to Manila (and the butt numbing 27 hour plane ride that accompanied that trip), but I couldn’t bring myself to knit much during that trip. So they sat neglected some more.

Unfinished no more.  Bring on the knits!