At 7:30 this morning in the early overcast light, I finally got a photo of a neighbor's daffodils among the oaks and pines.
At 2:30 this afternoon we touched down to this.
Seattle's Spring does start early. It just looks wetter and grayer. And it lasts longer.
But I did finally get some knitting done.
(Note the metal Addi lace needles. I had no problem getting multiple metal needles in two different projects through security at either end - for now. )
...Calcite, Cacti, Canyons, Coyotes, Castles in the Air, and Childhood Memories.
I started to put together my 'D' entry for the ABC-Along and realized that, though I'd thought a lot about what I'd do, I never actually posted my 'C' entry. In the spirit of following the few rules that Vicki suggested, I'll do it before I do 'D.'
Earlier this month we took a trip to Arizona. We started in Tucson, where I was born but where I haven't been since. While there we shopped the ginormous Gem and Mineral show where we bought quite a few specimens and fossils, including this Calcite-filled fossilized whelk.
We also spent a couple of days in Sedona, arriving just as the snow melted off the roads and you could get there again.
I lived in Sedona as a small child between 1957 and '61. I wanted to show my husband why I have such vivid memories of the place. It's changed a lot since I could cross the main road to my Dad's gas station, the only one in town, all by myself at age five. But as soon as we drove into the red hill area, I felt I'd Come Home.
We saw Cacti in the snow, reminding me of the time my father carried me to the bus stop on his shoulders because of the snow and then I had to walk home on my own since school was canceled. Sedona lies at 4500 feet and counts as High Dessert where you have real seasons.
We saw vistas of Canyons much too big to fit in a photograph and with much too vivid a contrast of red rock and blue sky for little automatic cameras to believe those colors were right, so everything came out toned down.
We saw Coyotes who seemed completely unfazed by our presence (we were in a car.)
The Creek-side backyard of one of the places I lived lay just across from our hotel.
We could see Coffeepot Rock, a favorite of my mother's, from that house - actually more a shack.
On the way to Sedona we stopped at one of my favorite spots, Montezuma's Castle. Neither a true castle nor at all related to Montezuma, it always seemed like a Castle in the Air to me.
Though the town has grown badly now that paved roads get you there, the landscape really is everything you've ever heard about it. Go there if you can. Then imagine it with one gas station, one coffee shop, and a small, impressionable girl who learned there to love nature in all it's forms and mysteries we can't explain.
So, I didn't take these on a Saturday and I'm not composing this post on a Saturday. They're still pretty pictures.
These were taken on our trip to Arizona a couple of weeks ago. The red rock one is from Sedona, where there was some snow on the ground and it was freezing except at mid-day.
Yes, the sky really is that blue.
...And an Apology for being away from the blog for so long.
I spent a week in California helping my mother to clear out 20 years of stuff and dust in her house so she can put it up for sale. If you remember when we last left our heroine, she (me) planned to replace a house with one to share with Mom that will suit Mom's current and future needs better than the ones either of us own currently.
We ended up with all of my siblings and a few accessory family members there for the weekend, too. I'm the oldest of five, so we had lots of help. Plus, my mother works much harder than most 80 year olds. I expect her to be around for another decade, at least, especially given her family history. And we finished the whole house in a week. Anyone who has been through this with a parent will appreciate the effort that took.
Fortunately for me, Vicki runs a fairly loose ABC-Along, so I can feel OK posting these Photos several days late for A now that I've re-emerged. They are still in alphabetical order.
I caught the Airporter bus just as the sun rose and the city started moving around.
Just as I ran out the door, I realized in my late-night packing I hadn't wound the yarn I planned to knit on the plane.
Luckily for me (I'm on a streak), Stephanie had recently blogged on Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton knitting from a skein. As in 'Don't Wind Your Yarn Into a Ball'. You just untwist the skein, lay it over your knees or other support, and twist it back up when you stop.
This works surprisingly well with the set-up on a plane - no ball to roll away and a handy tray as support for the hank. You do lose the ability to hop up quickly when the restroom becomes vacant.
Vicki-note the purple squares in that photo. I started on the group project. Unfortunately, that last square is not much further along, though it's been past that point twice since this flight.
I tossed the whole pile into my purse as I got off the plane, then managed to pull the needle out of the knitting while digging something out of my purse. The other tries related to techniques that didn't work as well as I liked.
That pretty much covers the last week and a half worth of knitting , until today. Today I attended the first of two workshops on socks with Cat Bordhi (of the knitting around on two circulars and Moebius knitting). See here for a good description of what a workshop with Cat feels like. Details tomorrow.
The socks had a great time in Vegas.
They enjoyed the view of the fountains from our room at The Bellagio.
They played tourist at Cirque du Soleil's "O".
And they were our only guests plus 'something blue' at our wedding.
They had such a good time that Sock #2 ended up going on an inch too long in the foot when it should have started gusseting and had to be tinked back into line when we got home.
Between 3:30 and 4 this afternoon I leave for the airport to catch a plane to Las Vegas. My sock is packed and ready to see the sights.
I plan plenty of traveling sock photos to choose from for my Summer of Socks entry. Maybe I can get a Cirque du Soleil clown to model/pose with the sock.
Predicted highs for the Seattle area on the 4th and 5th range from the mid-80s to the low 90s. Las Vegas may equal record highs of 115F for the dates. Predicted lows run around 85F.
I lost what little heat tolerance I had when we moved to Seattle 16 years ago. I don't expect to spend time outside in Vegas other than in the town cars we've reserved for the few places we need to go.
I plan to hang out in the botanical garden at the Bellagio and watch the fountains dance. The Cirque theaters better be well air conditioned, unlike their traveling tent.
On the knitting front, I've managed to keep my gauge more consistent on my second sock in Cherry Tree Hill's Supersock DK Spring Frost. Consequently it fits a bit more snuggly -- a good thing. The yarn didn't flash, it pooled. The pink pool wraps around the side of the sock, minimizing the impact of the actual size of the splotch.
On my monitor the color in this photo matches the actual sock very well.
I'll check e-mails once or twice while gone. I set up a couple of automatic posts for while I'm gone; things I'd post if I were here. Happy Canada Day Monday (It is a day off for many, right?) and happy 4th of July. Celebrate safely.
In a couple of days when things are settled again, I'll go back and edit whatever got overlooked in the sudden and precipitous posting of last night's entry.
Just before 2AM, the actual post time, I heard that something's-wrong, Lamazze-style breathing coming from the bedroom where Spousal-Equivalent slept. Or where he had slept until awakened by kidney stones -- his 6th really bad attack in his life.
Few things frustrate and torture more than the inability to help a loved one in that much pain. Ten years ago I worked as an RN for 10 years so I find the helplessness especially hard.
We got home from the ER at 7AM. By the time we get to a hotel room tonight I'll be a zombie.
I hope to post again tomorrow night when we arrive in California. I will have just spent two days in a car with two cats and an S-E recovering from kidney stones or, possibly, passing more.
Fortunately I'd almost finished packing, other than last minute stuff. I narrowed down the knitting projects to this:
And I added one more book.
I'm not a fast knitter. I'm not slow, but I doubt I'll ever finish a sweater or giant lace shawl in a week or less like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee seems to be able to.
Tomorrow morning I leave for four weeks in California. Actually, not a total of four weeks. I fly back on the 16th to attend four days of workshops with Sally Melville.
This is what I have set out as knitting projects to take:
Three projects I'm actively knitting -- my two-socks-at-once, the jinxed green socks, my Not-Pink 'Little Pink Thing' (which is a gift I hoped to finish before I left but will mail back).
A large rectangular shawl I need to crab stitch edging onto -- Old Project -- I finished the co-ordinating sweater 5 years ago.
A smaller rectangular shawl I'm doing in Blush Baby Cashmerino -- Old Project first started 3? 4? years ago.
Two colors of Lace-weight mohair for quick scarf/small shawl projects -- my designs in my first lace-weight pieces.
Cream silk/wool for house-socks -- another project based on the 2-sock class I just took to reinforce the techniques.
The cardigan of Mountain Colors 4/8s wool I want to cast on soon -- I need a non-scarf/shawl/sock project.
A blue and beige ribbon for some sort of scarf -- just 'cause.
The pile includes projects I'm close to finishing and have been working on lately, projects I haven't worked on in ages, things I told myself and others I'd start soon. Noble choices, but I have no hope of finishing even half of this in a month.
Then we have the reading material. I have in the past read this much in a month, or even less, but not since I started knitting.
This is not a completely leisure trip. It will include weed-eating and tree trimming on 3/4 of an acre.
I have until 10 AM to decide what to leave behind. Fortunately, or not, depending on your point of view, I have room to take it all if I really want to.
