23 Mosquito Bites...

...and one new hat.

That's what I got during our trip in Mendocino County. The main draw for me is the California Wool & Fiber Festival, but also Navarro Winery, the County Fair, and camping, too.

The hat says "Country Music Kicks Butt". The beautiful wool is from Colors of Nature in Davis.

We brought home an awful lot of dirt. I got 23 mosquito bites, the others got none, go figure. Our handknit sweaters came in handy since I forgot to bring pillows. Many s'mores were eaten. It rained this morning but we were prepared to haul out first thing anyway.

It was a great trip, we had a lot of fun. The weather was cool, but the rain held off until today. The partiers must have been scared off by the rain, we got good sleep this time. My son got a sparkly rose painted on his face:



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In other fiber news, I finished my Rainbow Swedish Fish Socks a week or so ago.

They were the July-Aug KAL of the San Francisco One-Sock-A-Month group. Here is a group shot. Yes, on mine each row of fish was a different yarn so I had over 30 ends per sock to weave.




The current KAL is Shur'tugal which translates to Dragonslayer. I'm doing them in Wollmeise WD Granatapfal, a fire-y color.

On October 1st I'm starting another Ravelry Knit and Read-A-Long, Frankensocks. The group is reading Frankenstein and making socks from our leftovers. Here are mine:


Last Sunday was a crazy day. I got on the road at 6:15 for a 30 mile training ride. Then I rushed to sock group. Finally I caught the streetcar out to our Daughters of Norway meeting. We got a needlefelting lesson. I really want to do more needlefelting. My sister gave me a coordinated kit, and I traded with someone for a box of colors. We made hedgehogs.


Have I mentioned that I'm very occasionally working at Urban Fauna Studio? I have keys to a fiber store, watch out!

My Favorite Things...

... are pink

When presented with the challenge of knitting my rejected sari silk yarn, my friend Erica knit a pouch, and then gave it to me. The hot pink bow makes is especially awesome. I hope her hands have recovered.


I love this cyclist!


Speaking of bikes, I've got a new addition to my pink one, a coconut drink holder. Perfect for a coffee cup, or, I suspect, a beer can.

(I just Googled this item, and was thrilled to find it described as "super tacky". Don't worry, I didn't pay $25 for it, it came from a clearance bin in of all places, Moscow, Idaho. Where you can ride on the sidewalks legally.)

The Past Six Months

I just posted a big knitting update. It was so long that I'm doing an update of my fabulous life here separately.

I just looked through the archives. Did I really not post about my birthday? In February? Not only did I attend Stitches West and take a Bohus class I got fabulous gifts.

First, Teekay knit me the fabulous viking helmet pictured above. Pink braids, can you believe it? Whenever I wear it people want to know where to buy one or if I will knit them one? (You can't and No).

I also got yarn, fiber, homemade goodies, and babysitting coupons. I know my husband got me something good, but I can't remember.



***

K. went to camp at his school all summer, we had just a few weeks off. The school year started back up yesterday. Last week was a parent work week to get the school cleaned up. I volunteered to go to the dump. The guy who gave me masks in the past and sometimes helps me unload checked me in. He commented on all my pink stuff - shirt, mug, bottle, phone. Too bad I didn't have my hardhat on. Glad someone appreciates it.

We took a road trip to Newport, Oregon over 4th of July and I finally met my sister-in-law and two nephews who flew out from Kentucky. I tried to do Tour de Fleece but it just didn't happen this year. We only have basic cable, so I couldn't watch the race, which just made me sad. I did spin on the trip, though.


We drove home along the Umpqua River. Here's a photo of us at an Elk viewing area. Yeah, I know. They are there, behind us, trust me.


In July I was lucky enough to be a delegate from my lodge to the Daughters of Norway Convention in Costa Mesa. What fun to meet so many Sisters (and see so many bunads). My sister was an alternate delegate from her lodge, so we roomed together. It was a full trip with a rosemaling class, business meetings, marching, and banquets. My kid did great with mom gone for three nights.

The day I got back K had his 4th birthday. We had a family dinner, a bowling party, and a "birthday circle" at school. Tons of fun, and he is enjoying going to others' parties, too.

***

On the bike front I did the Tour de Peninsula a few weeks ago. This time a 31 miler with some good climbing. I've come a long way since last year. I haven't been riding a whole lot, but need to ramp up for the 55-mile Princess Promenade in Sacramento October 3rd. Look at the jersey, how could I not do it?

Of course lots of other stuff has gone on. I wish I would blog more often. But I keep breaking cameras so I think that has been holding me back.

Heat Wave

Our summer is finally here in San Francisco and I am sweltering. The perfect time to finish languishing mittens, no?


These are Snow Chains Mittens designed by my friend Jessica. I started them way back in January or February, I think.

Last week I finished this stole. The pattern is called Fairy Leaves, by the pooling genius, Gladys We. She has come up with quite a few projects that allow you force variegated yarn to pool into orderly stripes. It took two days of swatching for me to get the right stitch count to use this Shaeffer Anne yarn. And then it took forever to knit, including ripping out several inches in a moving vehicle with no lifeline.


This knit tulips were for K.'s teacher. She taught them a Japanese song about tulips, red, yellow, and white.


I see I have not posted any finished items since January, so here goes. Click to see photos a little bigger.

Here's the Lopi sweater I made for Ed. He was so impressed he keeps telling people it looks like it was bought in Iceland.


This is Prepared for Vancouver, which I knit for charity.

I made more Lopi felted bags.

And this felted handbag....


...and a Citron Shawl to wear to May's San Francisco Ravelry meet-up, which was organized by two of my friends.


This is a hand spun and hand knit hat, which went to my former mother-in-law.

These are my crazy clown socks, knit from some Koigu, Cherry Tree Hill, and rainbow Serenity Garden.

Finally, Bohus socks, which I adore to no end. The cuffs were the class project in Susanna Hanson's Stitches West class. The foot is Berroco Ultra Alpaca that I bought at the show with my Webs gift certificate. Toasty.


At the end of the class everyone laid out their wristlets.


The whole not buying yarn thing is going well. I haven't used up a ton of stash because I keep picking long projects. But it has not been a hardship, especially since I got several yarn gifts. I love shopping for yarn, but it is also fun to get creative with what I have.

Another challenge is to use up all the yarn I got from our knitting group's stash exchange. That's where I got the yarn for the pooling stole and blue handbag. I've got three more projects to go.

Greetings

The kid and I took a trip to visit my sister in Moscow, Idaho last week.

This photo sums up what traveling with a preschooler is like:


Full of comedy and tragedy:



We drove all over Northern Idaho and Washington. Saw a lot of wheat. Took a bunch of train photos:


This one did not turn out exactly as planned, but I know the photographer would protest if I did not include it:


The sweetest thing happened at Prospectors Days in Republic, Washington. My kid got to hold a five-day-old kid:


We got to do some fun stuff. It rained a bit, but at least it wasn't hot. It took two days to recover from the trip.

On the knitting front, I have some f.o.'s I haven't blogged about, and am working on a pooling stole.

I got back all excited about spinning for some reason. I think because the only reading I did was from the most recent Spin-Off. Yesterday I washed some Jacob fleece and finished up spinning my first Shetland which was also my first 3-ply.

Preschool summer camp starts tomorrow and I am looking forward to a summer with no school meetings conflicting with my knit night.

I'm a dumbass. Count the ways.

I started hiking at San Pedro Valley Country Park. There's just enough time to drop my kid off at school, zoom down to Pacifica, do a rigorous hike, and make it back to school at noon. I had hiked here in the past, toward Montara Mountain, but lately I've being taking the innocuous-sounding "hazelnut trail".

I have seen a lizard, a snake, bunny rabbits, quail, deer, hummingbirds, and tons of wildflowers.


Right now the trail is very overgrown in places. No-one else is on the trail. Very peaceful, and every visit is different, even though it is the same time of day and week. Last week I found this on the trail:


I knew it was a from a predator because it was full of hair. When I got home I showed the photo to the former hunter and verified with pics and info on the internet that it is from a mountain lion. I know the rules for dealing with them:

1. make noise
2. don't run
3. don't crouch
4. make yourself look big

Let's review my actions the day I took pictures of twenty different flowers. I've got #4 covered without trying, and #1 also as I stomp uphill in my giant hiking shoes. And as long as I was heading uphill, #2 wasn't going to happen. But think about #3 and I am pure dumbass, stopping, leaning down and taking photos of flowers (and scat). Pretty quiet, too, composing and focusing and fiddling with settings, and all.

So after some discussion a compromise was reached. I would carry pepper spray if I insisted on hiking there alone. I thought a bear bell would be a good idea, too.

I headed back up this morning, even though I wanted to see the start of a stage of the Tour de California. Exercise and meditation won over celebrity watching. But if Thor Husvold had not broken his collar bone last week and was a mere mile from my house, the decision would have been different.

I got to the trail and discovered that in my efforts to secure the pepper spray at home I had forgotten it. I took the camera but vowed not to take pictures up on the hill. Since the sporting goods store did not have a bear bell, I improvised by jangling my keys all the way. I should also mention the guy at the store asked if I wanted to buy a Tazer for the lion. Uh no. Dumbasses probably should not have those.

I set my watch because there is no room for dawdling if I want to get back to school on time. Like a dumbass I got soaking wet on the overgrown trail. I mean water was squishing out of my shoes. I also found I could not really enjoy the hike because I was pretty scared about the mountain lion. I know they don't normally attack people, but it happens from time to time, and I knew for sure I was in their territory.

I saw a lot of small cat prints, but I'm not so scared of bobcats, they are little. But the trail got really overgrown and it was pea soup foggy, so I couldn't see much near or far. I got really spooked. My hair caught on a blackberry branch and out of my peripheral vision I mistook the still-shaking branch for a critter. I got scared by a rabbit. Thank goodness a deer didn't dart out, one look at that light-colored fur and I would have fainted. My pants were so wet that they were hanging up on things. A sensation that one could imagine is similar to a mountain lion reaching out of the brush and swiping your leg. I let my keys bang against my metal water bottle.


Then I saw big prints. I'm pretty sure these are mountain lion on top of bobcat. I risked my life to take this picture for you. What's that? Do I hear echoes of "dumbass"? There were just tons of prints on the trail. I was so relived to get off the hill and onto the last mile and a half of graded trail. I was rewarded with four different bunches of quail, two cottontails, and a deer.

I had just enough time to stop for a cup of coffee and get to the school on time. I drove into the mini-mall by Highway 1, ran in for my coffee, but left because there were a couple people ahead of me and no-one taking orders. I pulled across the road to find a police officer turning everyone away because the highway was closed for the bike race. Dumbass! I knew about the race, I even saw warning signs driving down the but they said the southbound side would be closed. Only a dumbass would believe that. The officer thought the odds of my finding the back way north would be about as good as waiting 20 minutes for the race to go by.

I made frantic phone calls to see if anyone could get to the school. Then I made the dreaded call to the school to say I would be late, fortunately my friend answered. I decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em so I went and saw the race after all. Here is my photo of the leaders:


Dumbass!!!!

In the end I only got to school fifteen minutes late. They really did open the road up quickly. I got to school, dug in my bag for money in case I had to pay a fine for being late and found my pepper spray. I mean really, how can one person do so many dumb things in a day? And it isn't even over yet.

The Very Long Week

I'm so glad this week is over, it was a long one. I'm still dealing with my grandfather's death, which was compounded by the anniversary of my father's death this week. You never know when a wave of sadness is going to come over you.

Sunday: coffee got knocked over into my laptop. Panic. Left it drying overnight. Well mostly, had to email some files so I could do work on Mr. TVP's ancient imac.

Monday: Kid woke up sick. Scramble to attempt to find replacement for my work day at preschool. Laptop still not quite right, right half of keyboard not working. Use frustrating old i-mac. Have to take sick kid with me to drop off snack at school. Long day with kind of sick kid. I actually was able to get some work done, though. I knew he was sick because he willingly took a nap.

Tuesday: I wake up with kind of sore throat. Kid still has too runny a nose to send him to school, plus he slept in which is sign of illness, he does not like to waste precious time sleeping. Go to Apple store and find repair options. Take time to mull it over and run into friend, who takes our picture. She tells my kid that it was not his fault that he was screwing around and knocked my coffee over. I guess that's better than the reaction of the Apple employee who said "he wasn't drinking it was he?"


End up replacing keyboard, with caveat that the optical drive will probably go out. Pick it up later on the way to a school meeting.

Wednesday: kid still has really runny nose. Take him bowling for the first time. A lot of fun. Since when did they get these fancy ramps for the kids? They don't have to even push the ball down the alley? He almost got as high a score as I did. I enjoyed playing with my leopard ball and black & white saddle shoes.


Discover that several keys on my keyboard are not working. Most notably the right-side apple key that I often use for shortcuts. Still haven't had the time to go back to the Apple store as of Saturday. Don't want to drag the poor guy there again. It is crazier there than usual with all the iPad nonsense.

Thursday: Mr. TVP promises to come home really early so I can go bike riding. Did I mention my mother aka my free babysitter is out of town? K. and I go to the "Plant Museum" (Conservatory of Flowers) to see the garden scale trains one last time. Baby doll came along. We even packed him a bottle. Bonus! Thomas was there.


I never got that bike ride. Instead of early, he comes home really late, almost bedtime due to job site issues. I was frazzled to say the least.

Friday: Took K. to Marin to visit with his cousin and my sister at a fancy playground. Good time and it was a beautiful day. Despite that good start I was not thrilled that not only did Mr. TVP and I not get to go out he had a meeting and didn't come home until after 6:00. I also discover by way of getting out of breath coming up from the laundry room that the little bug is moving into my chest. Yippee.


Today I went for a run first thing, and later went on an excursion to take some photos. Got some knitting done on the bus, too. It was nice to be alone.

I'm sure next week will be better. We really did have some fun this week. And I got some good knitting in. But, I am just not cut out for twelve hours with a 3-year-old who doesn't nap. I have no idea how single mothers do it. Really. Especially old single mothers.

Cinderella Classic 2010

I just got back from riding the Cinderella Classic. My first time was 1998, haven't done one in about six years. It is a metric century for women only put on by the Valley Spokesmen club. The relatively flat loop winds around Livermore, San Ramon, and Dublin. Lots of livestock and wineries (and horse trailers).

I guess I kind of kept my training a secret, inasmuch as not blogging about it is secret-keeping. I had some reservations that I would be able to do it. Mainly, having time to train and the means to get a new road bike. But my husband put up with the increasingly long Saturday rides, and someone paid me back some big bucks, so it came together.

It was rough training though. It was hard to get rides in during the week. It rained a lot. I got sick. And my pink bike is heavy (and so am I). I got the road bike only a month or so ago and was nervous about getting it tweaked just right.

Today's ride was not as hard as the first time I did the Cinderella on knobby tires in the freezing cold, but it was pretty hard. It was cold and the wind was strong. I look forward to reading other blog posts about it. The best part was spending the night alone in a motel last night, with a king size bed all to myself.

66.5 miles. 5 hrs 50 minutes on the bike. Total time 6 hrs 40 minutes. This was easier at 29 than it is at 41!

Now to figure out which other nearby metrics (or less) I can do this year.

Jurassic Park

I have a thing about birds, I don't like them. Well, I like blue jays and hawks which is weird because the jays are mean and the hawks kill. But generally I don't like birds, they're prehistoric, like little dinosaurs. Cold-blooded and calculating. Except ducks. I like them.

I didn't realize just how scared I am of birds until yesterday. Background - we live in a top floor flat. You enter the building through a gate. You can either go up the steps past the first flat to ours or through a locked door to into the basement. There is also a back stairway down to the garage. But there is a door locked from the wrong side, so coming down the back you can only get into the laundry room and out the back door, not to the garage or front gate. It is pretty convoluted, and my greatest fear is getting trapped in the garage without my keys because you have to have one to get out.

Yesterday as K. and I rounded the corner to our front door, I noticed bird poop and chips of paint on the steps. There's a skylight at the top of the stairs so I thought that maybe it broke open and a bird was sitting there. Wrong! There was a bird flapping around and chirping, trapped in the stairway. He had been crapping himself in fear and pecking away at the skylight. We dashed in the front door and closed it firmly.

Panic immediately set in. We were trapped upstairs because there was no way I was going back out with the bird. And I had laundry to do! Plus I was worried about it freaking out and dying on my doorstep. And my fear of birds is nothing compared to my phobia of dead things. I freely admitted to my kid that I was scared of birds. He said he wasn't and that the bird was signing us a song. I let him think that the tortured squeaks and squawks were music and not a harbinger of death.

Now I have been "swooped" by starlings protecting their nest in the past. Since it was outdoors, and funny behavior, it didn't really bother me, I could escape. One block I lived on was particually bad. We may have sat in the parked the car and watched others get swooped for amusement. But this was different. The bird was panicked and I was trapped. I kept picturing a scene from The Birds ending with me leaping out a second story window.

I called Mr. TVP for advice. He said I could either kill it or try to lure it out by opening the back doors so it would feel the breeze and head in the right direction. It seemed weird to potentially lure it into the basement, and I didn't want it to die down there, but I wasn't thinking straight. So I hatched a plan to go down the back and open the backdoor and the two aforementioned interior garage doors. I would also venture as far up the stairs as I could with bread crumbs, leaving it a trail to freedom.

The first snag I ran into was the fact that my keys were in the front door, on the wrong side. No way was I opening the door even an inch to to reach out and grab them. The bird could have pecked my hand off or come into the apartment. And then he'd really be trapped since I have all our windows double locked due to the kid. And the back stairway is closed in by chicken wire (to keep pigeons out). But I had to have a key in to get to the front stairs, so I grabbed all our spare keys and jammed them in my pocket. Then I grabbed a piece of bread.

Next obstacle was the grill on the back door step which I had to crawl under and around. (We don't use the back stairs because they are creepy and you can see right into the neighbor's kitchen. Plus, the pigeons.) Managed that and got to the bottom of the stairs face to face with the door that is bolted from the other side, which I had forgotten about in my panic. At least I had my cell phone, so I made a panicked call to my downstairs neighbor. I explained the situation and she ran down the front stairs and let me into the garage. She agreed that birds are scary.

I opened the back door, propped open the interior garage doors, and laid a trail of crumbs down the stairs. As I was calling "here birdy, birdy", a dark figure came through the gate. I jumped and then was relived to see it was Mr. TVP dressed all in black, not a giant crow. Luckily he was nearby and had decided to come home early. I guess he didn't understand from my call where the bird was because he asked why I would want the bird to fly into the basement. Sigh.

I showed him my bread crumb trail and explained my plan. He shook his head, sighed, and asked for a shop towel. I asked him not the kill the bird. I pictured him wrapping it up and setting it free outside, but I didn't think he could catch it since the ceiling height is ten feet up there. All of a sudden he is yelling to shut the garage door. Which was kind of hard since I was cowering all the way in the back of the laundry room.

As I dashed to close the door, he announced the bird was gone. It had walked out the front gate. Amazed, I asked him how he did it. He said he flapped the towel around and shooed it down the stairs. Genius! Some comments were made to the effect that a pick-up, country music, and a cowboy hat do not a city kid transform. Whatever.

I later exulted in my freedom with a trip to the grocery store.

Happy Easter!

Just got back from a road trip for my grandpa's memorial service. The Easter Bunny found us in our motel room, thank goodness. The Easter Bunny may be a girl. We're not sure, but there's an awful lot of rouge there.

Back Together

My grandpa, Rufus Edwin Hiddleson, passed away early this morning. I know he is so happy to join my grandma. He was 91.

Oh Yeah

...I have a blog, I almost forgot.

Things have been busy as usual. My birthday was good, fun class at Stitches West. Cool presents that need photos. As does a Lopi sweater. I haven't been knitting a lot, but here and there. I need more socks, I have decided. I love wearing handknit socks.

We attended a Las Vegas themed event for the preschool. Perfect reason to dress my husband up as Elvis:


Oh yeah, I got a road bike and have been putting it to good use.