Doing It Right

Rhinebeck 2012 - a\k\a The NY State Sheep & Wool Festival
Yes, last year, but the yarn porn is still luscious.

There is an account on Twitter named Cat Food Breath written by some hilarious human from their cat's point of view. I laughed when s/he tweeted, "If you're home on Saturday night with your cat, you're doing it right." So yeah, I'm doing it right.

Honestly, I'm very happy to be here, chilling out with Emily, my face-palming yoga kitty.  She is a calm and affectionate cat, very quiet, who rarely meows unless she's accidentally locked out (oops -- then she lets loose an unearthly yowl at tremendous volume [my mom found that story hilarious] ) or when I'm about to feed her some of her new wet food (Nature's Variety Instinct, which is 95% meat and US-sourced) made from rabbit, venison, or lamb -- she seems to have become allergic to the duck. Ironically, the SPCA recommended the duck because she was allergic to who-knows-what, most likely chicken and fish.

Yes, I know, I sound like the crazy about my cat lady. To seal the deal, here is a photo of her, since she had not entered my life yet when I stopped writing in here in May of 2011. (Her adoptaversary is Sept. 16, 2011.)

"I can't believe mom is watching Criminal Minds AGAIN."

Emmy has been a godsend during my transition to working at home 80% of the time, since her undemanding companionship has kept me from completely losing what's left of my mind.

Our company has decreed that my team may have 2 full-time cubes for 7 people. Yes, really. When we go in once a week, we have to book a hotel space (read: cubicle) somewhere in the building. Yes, that is indeed a total pain in the patootie.  Part of my depression this summer may stem from the isolation, since as my friend Marci pointed out, I am one of the most social people she knows, and SHE used to work in theater!

So at the suggestion of my friend Dale, I am bumping it up to TWO consecutive days a week, for the sake of both logistics and my sanity. That way I can lock up the laptop overnight and not have to haul it around constantly, schedule meetings over 2 different work days, meet some friends for lunch, etc. There is also something to be said for actual face-to-face contact to transmit info. E-mail has its limits, as does my inbox. Plus, I need to remember how to act among my corporate cohorts (good point Dale) since I was turning into a total slob: it took 4 months, but I did devolve into working in my PJs.

Rhinebeck, October 2012 -
what Central Park is starting to look like only NOW...in November!

Speaking of digging my way out from under, evidently my long, rational discussion with my new brother-in-law (for the sake of brevity, I will refer to him henceforth as BIL#2) had only alleviated my anger at my sister briefly. BIL#2 and I carefully and diplomatically discussed the causes of my door-slamming outburst the morning after it happened. BIL#2 seems like a reasonable person, and his family are lovely salt-of-the-earth Brooklynites, who sound nothing like Bugs Bunny. Coincidentally, I noticed that I was notably calmer at work the next week, because I had finally, after a YEAR, gotten to express some of my feelings.

My furious outburst in my recent post (which represented MY feelings, not everyone else's) made me realize I'm still a long way from over my frustration with my sister. The rest of my family has probably worked out their issues long ago, but it's taken me a long time to get to this point (i.e., acknowledging that I'm STILL really angry since we went from being very close to "I might as well not have a sibling" ).      

And last but not least, my MRI found no trace of cancer in my giant skull. Many thanks to my friend Ellen for bugging me to finally call my oncologist.  For some reason, onco-doc had forgotten to call me back with the results, even though she had sent the info to my GP, whom I saw for part 1 of my annual physical on Thursday. Monday I'm going back to my ophthalmologist for a follow-up about my crazy, lazy eyeballs, that have been giving me headaches. (And people wonder why I want to haul back and clock the asshat Republicans who try to kill Obamacare.)

But to prove that a healthy cerebellum does not necessarily equate to good taste, here's a photo of my guilty pleasure heartthrob (ever since the early 1990s-- hey, I'm consistent!) from his new movie and directorial debut, MAN OF TAI CHI. Considering Karen Mok and Simon Yam are both in it as well, I may have to buy this, since it's legally available online via my cable company.

Not bad for a 49 year old, eh?

And NOW, time to set all the clocks back and enjoy an extra hour of sleep tonight. WOOHOO!

Big and little

I think Cinderella is a sweet and pretty (not to mention superfluffy) cat, don't you? Ironically, I have not seen her this weekend, as I have been at my sister's new home, a cute little 2 BR, 1.5 bath cottage in town (I walked from the train station! woohoo! and even made a detour along the way to the LYS here, which is closing on the 30th: the Greenwich branch of String). This weekend has been dedicated to setting up her new network and upgrading her PCs.

In fact, that's where I am right now, waiting for some software upgrades to finish downloading. While the wifi router (which I had never gotten around to installing at home, so I gave it to my sister -- heh) is working fine (finally) with her cable modem, Microsoft is -- as always -- being a pig: you know Windows XP service pack 2 is 266 MB? And since they are ceasing support of SP2 on July 13th, I figured I might as well download SP3 as well, but since THAT is 316MB, it's taking quite a while for both to finish chugging through.

The reason this is so pressing is that (a) her old Dell (not her new netbook) is just impossibly slow -- in fact, the day is coming shortly when either she or I will be throwing that thing from the roof -- and (b) my old Acer laptop has been working fine before I gave it to my big sis but none of the new antivirus software programs will work with SP1. Not a problem when it was sitting in my closet, but kind of key if my sister is going to use it as her primary PC. (HEY! My sister now wins for having the most PCs in the family: she has THREE! HA!)

Ooh, the download for SP2 just finished. Time to go!

But I will leave you with a photo of the pieces I just finished at the other ceramics studio: a giant coffee mug to replace my the one still (and at this point, now and forever) left at my ex's place, and some tiny soy sauce cups for my mom, who broke the one I made for her -- she wants to put them INSIDE her plates of food, a la chips & dip, so they are as small as shot glasses (or sake cups, depending on your point of reference -- heh).

Ding! SP3 just finish downloading. Okay, ciao for now!

Noodles and Yarn

So one of the things we did while I was visiting Seattle was go out to a kid-friendly restaurant, and at Chiang's Gourmet (which is quite tasty, and has also passed muster with Margaret's father), I ran across that fabled phenomenon of dual menus: American menu, and their much more interesting Chinese menu ("Authentic food like you saw in China") which thankfully came with English descriptions. Their homemade noodles were very tender (a la the difference between fresh and dried pasta), like this giant bowl of homemade noodles with beef and veggies, recommended by Margaret's dad and ordered by her husband (and sampled by us -- score!)

One of the dishes which truly awed Margaret and myself (yes, this was from the Chinese menu) was a bowl of Five Star Spicy Hot Chicken, which honestly literally looked like and entire bowl of Szechuan chili peppers (what chicken? we didn't see any chicken in that bowl when we walked by!)

Another thing which amused us was the reaction of their baby, perfectly captured in this shot: "But Mommy, I want grown up food, not baby food!" heh. Now Margaret makes her baby really good food from scratch (ex: curried chicken, garlic beans, etc. all pureed and adjusted for baby's palate, of course) -- and after reading reading the ingredients in some commercial baby food last night I can see why: additives galore! -- but I guess textural food does LOOK way more interesting than various purees. You can't blame the little guy, can ya?

However, since cutiepie only has 2 bottom teeth, he is not yet past the puree stage. So his attempt to reach this variation on dan dan noodles (described as "Home Made Noodles, Ground Pork & Diced Drybean Curd w/Bean Paste Sauce" -- and did we forget to mention the chilies? why yes we did) was foiled by all of the adults. I mean, we would have let him try a piece of the soft, fresh, noodles of there weren't chilies involved. Sorry, kiddo.

And did I mention that all of the portions were GIGANTIC? That deep bowl of noodles was enormous. All the spoons you see wedged in the photos are BIG serving spoons, not tablespoons. Consider that after we finished eating, the spicy noddles still filled a takeout container to the brim, and THIS dish was an appetizer (!) portion. Say what?!

I ordered it because it sounded intriguing ("Chicken w/Ground Green Beans Sheets" -- oh yeah, and with mustard oil) and it was tasty, but we simply ran out of room to eat any more!

And what is a trip to another city with a stop at a yarn store? (Buwahahaha!) Little Knits, whose website is annoying but whose store is quite pleasant, provided entertaining browsing, where Margaret stalwartly refused all temptation, and I manege to restrain myself to only 2 skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (only $6 total!!) which I am currently knitting up for baby Olivia. I am making Sublime Yarns' Little Sailor Coat in Coral Sunset, which I am using US4s to knit, in order to get the correct gauge.

During my trip, I managed to finish Olivia's second sweater, the unnecessarily complicated but still tres cute Little Daisy Cardigan in Marks and Kattens Pacific cotton yarn, a discontinued yarn which I bought from a now defunct LYS, which goes to show you how long it's been in my stash. (I still have 3-4 more balls though!)

I find that I like British designs but their instructions are infuriating (witness: Debbie Bliss). As they say, 2 countries separated by a common language. But really, the Sublime Yarn baby designs are adorable. And I am still coasting on my vacation bliss, so I can't even get too aggravated about that at the moment.

However, lunch time is now OVAH. Ciao!

Gone vs. forgotten

So did I mention the lunch we had at my mom's on Labor Day? My dad's birthday was in late August, but since I was in Seattle at the time (hi Margaret!) she held off on making his ghost meal until Labor Day, which coincidentally still fell within the period of the Hungry Ghost Festival.

My sweetie and I went over to Mom's where we barely made a dent in the mounds of food (but hey, that's what doggie bags are for!) and spent the afternoon chatting, in that special 3-way, bilingual pattern our family is known for (i.e., either my sister or myself translate comments between mom and everyone else). Happily, Mom likes my engineer (as evidenced by her continuing quest to feed him and send him home with leftovers) and both of them are hilarious/entertaining conversationalists.

All of this talk of eating is kind of appropriate, since I have now outgrown most of my cooler weather clothing. Sigh. So the pile of older, larger sizes that was destined for charity have now come back out to play. Unfortunately.

Also unfortunately, my larger jeans did actually make it to the charity bins, so I now need a new pair. Thus, I went roaming through 2 Filene's Basement locations during the past week, and lo! I found this pair which fits me perfectly (do NOT ask what size I now require) and best of all, was only $20. (Did I mention I am insanely cheap about clothing?)

Eventually, I will get back on the wagon, since my knees and feet are telling me this weight gain is really making them unhappy (not to mention that it is actively painful to wear some of my clothes). However, I do not seem to have wandered yet into that internal (pyschological) room where the "disciplined eating & exercise" light switch is located. Until I mentally flip that switch, I munch away morosely.

When I mutter about this problem, my friend Marci snorts and comments, "Gee, I can't imagine WHY you're having this problem. I mean it's not like you've had anything on your mind this year, you slacker." Umm... well, when you put it that way... it does sound kind of silly (but then, I am good at finding things to beat myself up about).

Speaking of mothers, my engineer's mom's birthday is next month, and she has expressed a desire for a knitted tea cosy, so I am making her a pumpkin one, similar to this pumpkin tea cosy, a nice quick & easy break from baby sweaters.

After all, I still have a big mound of orange yarn left over from The Harf (which, incidentally, my friend is looking forward to breaking out again, now that it is football season once more -- I just worry that he may be lynched with it as he now lives in Chicago, territory of the Bears and not the Bengals) . So I went and bought this skein of green Plymouth Encore Worsted (color #1233) from the gigantic (expanded) Seaport Yarn at lunch the other day. It's for the leaf and stalk portion of the cosy.

Speaking of lunch, it's over. Time to get back to work (before I run off at 4pm for radiation... honestly, I should really take a shorter lunch these days, but...) Ciao!

Gone fishing

...and now I'm back. From Seattle, where I visited my friend Margaret and her husband Andrew, and their future child, XY as I like to call him. Using a mere 50K frequent flyer miles, I flew round trip business class on American Airlines.

I had forgotten they actually feed you (A LOT) so that bagel I brought along was unnecessary, what with the bowls of warmed nuts, filet mignon entree, salad, prosciutto, ice cream sundae, and fresh-baked cookies. While it was all delicious (really) and served on china (!) I felt a little guilty since I could clearly hear them broadcasting the prices of sandwiches for sale in coach. Oh well. And you wouldn't think 2" extra in each seat width would make that much difference, but then, those 8" armrests really cut down on the elbow wrestling.

Since Margaret is 37 weeks pregnant, and since I have just as much energy as an extremely pregnant woman, I was perfectly content to do mellow things like shop, take walks around scenic areas like Green Lake Park (above -- oh, and despite that photo, it was actually sunny every day that I was there), visit bakeries like Hiroki, lie on the couch reading, and sample the goods at homemade donut shops like Top Pot Dougnuts. Yuummmmmm... I gobbled down my chocolate raspberry and Bavarian cream doughnuts before I stopped to think of taking photos -- sorry -- but the Hiroki treats were captured before their destruction: (clockwise from the top) ginger pear biscuit for Margaret, orange bun, for me and fig & cheese bun for Andrew.

We (Margaret & I -- Andrew was working or took off like the straight guy he is, heh) also explored local yarn stores: 3 LYS in 3 days! Score! We went to Acorn Street Shop, Weaving Works, and Bad Woman Yarn. Both Margaret and I liked Weaving Works best, and these photos may demonstrate why.

If you can resist buying vast piles of yarn, loitering around yarn stores is actually quite a thrifty vacation past time. I managed to restrain myself by focusing on the colors of my next Little Bubbles cardigan: if it didn't coordinate, I wasn't going to buy it.

In the meantime, I finally finished the Little Bubbles for XY's cardie. See? It even coordinates with their couch. (Heh) And I got to use some of the puppy dog buttons I bought on eBay a while ago.
Other odd anomalies besides the sunny weather (although I understand sunny weather is normal for summertime there) was not one, but TWO out of three flights arriving early. My nonstop flight to Seattle arrived an hour early (!) thereby understandably startling Margaret. My flight home from Chicago O'Hare (I transferred there) got to Newark half an hour early. And since I only had "one personal item" and carry-on luggage (I mean real carry=ons, and not those overstuffed monstrosities people use to avoid checked baggage fees), I zipped right through the airports.

Staying at Margaret and Andrew's house was so delightfully peaceful: not a single siren pierced the air in 4 days, whereas in my apartment, my phone calls are regularly interrupted by trucks of various kinds: fire, ambulance, sanitation, etc.

The restorative quiet (and pretty flowers -- see the begonias on their front stoop?) have left me in a much better mood, although sitting here on my couch like a bump on a log all day has left not such a good feeling. So, tomorrow I will try to actually assemble my console table before I go back to work on Thursday. Hopefully, tomorrow night I will get to see my sweetie!

Then Thursday afternoon, I have a setup meeting with my radiation oncologist, and Friday is a half day before Labor Day weekend.

Tristate trifecta

So it occurs to me that I am now very behind in the news updates. Therefore, it seems only appropriate to start off with a photo of a 3 year old project (as my older greatnephew Thomas will be 3 on April 3rd -- incidentally, also the date of my next chemo, but more on THAT later

Yes, this blankie was one of my first major projects, completed with the assistance of my mom, who could not stand watching me slowly seam the squares together (she is very zippy in all things sewing). It is now in my younger greatnewphew Nicky's room at my sister's house, ready to be thrashed and drooled upon. Excellent! (Since it is made of Plymouth Encore and cotton backing, I have faith in its durability.)

So while I was at my sister's home in CT last weekend, having a lovely leisurely brunch with the other "kids" (2 of whom are married with children now, so child-free time with just the four of us is very precious, and thus, my post-1st-chemo request: they asked, and this was all I wanted) I took the opportunity to finally visit the LYS in Greenwich.

And a good thing I did too, as it turns out The Knitting Niche will be closing. Didn't know that's why they were having a 20% - 5% sale. I just thought it was end of winter clearance. So how could I resist 2 hanks of Elsebeth Lavold angora (91 yds/ea.) for a mere $5 per hank?! (I would have bought more, but they only had 2 left, darnit.)

I grabbed the yarn (the other ball is a deliciously soft Filatura Di Crosa Zarina Baby Print, also on sale for 20% off $9) and a pair of size 13 circulars to start on a fluffy scarf for my sweetie's friend Patty, whose 50th birthday dinner is here in Jersey City today. Since I knit tightly, and that defeats the purpose of supersoft yarn, I thought I'd go in the other direction and knit deliberately loose and lacy.

After several ripped out attempts/trials, I settled on a combination of stockinette, garter, and dropped stitch. And to fancy it up (it is, after all, the big 5-0) I decided to add a beaded fringe to each end, both to give a nice weight for when you wrap the scarf around your neck, and perhaps to eke out another inch of two (one more hank of angora would've been nice) from the finished 5 foot length.

What do you think? I couldn't decide which color beads to use (blue, green, or red), or where to place them (edge/fringe, or near each end), so my engineer suggested alternating blue and green beads, with alternating lengths. (Yes, I am one of the few women who regularly consults straight men for design tips. Not a great stylist am I.)

The avocado on the left here was simply lying around my sister's kitchen counter, and I thought it looked abstract, funny, and vaguely lewd, so of course, I snapped a shot. Heh.

And the crispy crunchy snacks on the right were my variation of a WW recipe. Using egg roll wrappers (less doughy, and therefore, less points), you dice up some Canadian bacon, cheese, and scallions, and bake them after a spritz of cooking spray in each side, or in my case, the olive oil mister. Flip halfway through at about 8 minutes and voila! Crunchy chewy snacks at 2 pts each.

You can bet I'll be trying variations thereof, especially since I now have an entire package of wrappers in the freezer.


Yes, I will be looking for all sorts of cooked food recipes, since I learned this week that I will be having not 6, but a total of EIGHT chemo treatments. Aaaaaahhhh!!! This brings my scheduled finish date from June 5th all the way to July 17th. Double aaaaaahhhh!!! So after a 3 week hiatus, my "5 or 6 weeks" of radiation treatments will start in August, and end somewhere in mid-September. AAAAHHHH!!!

So yeah, this will be My Year of Cancer. I will be living on CST: Cancer Standard Time, as one article in the New York Times so memorably put it. Pretty much, most of my year, and most of my thoughts revolve around cancer: treatment, side effects, restrictions, and other fun things.

Two of my friends will have 9 months of similar symptoms (weight gain, nausea, restricted diets) for pretty much the same dates, but they'll be getting plump little babies out of the deal. I'll merely be cancer free. (Not a small thing I know, but still, I think you see what I mean.)

My mom has also done the math, and after a further 5 years of tamoxifen, she now realizes: no more grandchildren are in her future. She is bummed, but gradually getting used to the idea. I reminded her: health first, kids can always be adopted (as my fabulous engineer was). So okay, we don't plan on kids, but I gotta give the woman a little bit of (false) hope, ya know?

I leave you all with a shot of the lovely tulips my nephew bought for me last weekend.

The Stockinette

So last weekend I went to The Stockinette, the new LYS near my engineer in Jersey City. which I have posted about previously. The selection was small, but the staff and cafe were very pleasant, and I succumbed to this pattern book by Sublime (whose official site, appropriately enough, like The Stockinette, is lame, but where other sites are much more informative).

The pattern book uses Sublime cashmere merino silk dk which is imported by Knitting Fever. The Little Sailor Coat and the Little Swing Coat are both adorable and the reasons why I bought the book. However, I forgot that reading British knitting directions can be FREAKING ANNOYING, a la Debbie Bliss.

I have already knitted (and frogged and reknitted) a sleeve for the Little Sailor Coat, but find myself yearning for something with better stitch definition than the Valuruguai Mimosa Superwash (doubled -- as it is fingering weight: what the hell was I thinking?!) which I have in lavender from a previous eBay moment of insanity. (The photo here is in macro mode, and the sleeve itself is, of course, a whole 6 or so inches long.)

So okay, the stitch definition isn't bad, really, upon review, but I guess I have developed an odd fondness for knitting in cotton, which I know many people hate working with -- go figure.

For example, I have recently finished this kimono for my threading lady, who is due to have a girl next month. It uses Bernat Cottontots, which I inherited from a coworker who decided she didn't like any of a giant sack of yarn that she bought (i.e., windfall for me & my stash!).

And then I preserved what's left of my sanity by finishing the seaming for this baby sweater during the last so-called debate between that cranky, incoherent old fart, and the suave young guy. (My engineer did it by reading a scifi book, and we both imbibed in some tasty merlot he brought over. Between the seaming, drinking, and laundry folding I plowed through, I managed not to scream -- too often -- at the TV, but I digress.)

For some reason, I had the odd urge to knit eyelet a while ago, using Plymouth Encore Colorspun, which is actually lovely. So I finished this up for our sorely missed tech services person who returned from maternity this week. We are having a baby post-shower for her tomorrow, since she preferred no baby gifts prior to her little girl's arrival, even though they are Trinidadean and not Asian. ;-)

The Mogul's scarf that I made for my nephew (who now also has a baby girl! yikes!) a few years ago is also proving possibly inspirational, as my engineer has expressed a desire for a hat (I explained that he was not getting a sweater until I got a rock) and to me, a hat needs a companion scarf. :-)

Jeez, I had better get cracking on my Xmas knitting!

Bluefin Tuna Special

Yes, once again, I succumbed to the chopped tuna special at Ise, where I was for lunch with my buddy Ryohei (who, incidentally, is wisely moving up his son's eye surgery to utilize health insurance while it's still definitely available). Having witnessed the gigantic portion my friend Christine had last time, I persuaded Ryo to SPLIT the $18 special with me, which I personally think should be renamed The Tuna Tsunami. Dessert was 2 pieces of tamago sushi. Yum.

Note the size of the mound of bluefin tuna tartar. Note the tea cup and ramen bowl sizes for scale. Note that this was a huge bargain. Note that I [heart] Ise Restaurant and want to check out their other branches, even though Ryo says THEY don't have the killer lunch specials.

Continuing on in the food lust vein, tomorrow night, we are going to have dinner at Cho Dang Gol in midtown, which is -- shockingly -- NOT located on 32nd Street. Selecting instead the slightly rebellious 35th Street nearby, their food is a little more unique than the standard Korean bbq, etc. I've been meaning to go back there for years, ever since a meal there with my friends Dale, Julie, and Margaret. Their menu looks mouthwatering.

This continues a yum-yummity outing for Korean food on Saturday to Mandoo Bar with my friends Marci and Jackie (and Marci's highly entertaining parents) for Marci's belated birthday luau, where I had (way, way too much) mandoo ramen soup.

I have also been struck by a hankering to cook lately (please, pick yourselves up off the floor after fainting from shock) which I suspect is due to a confluence of factors: cooler weather, the desire to eat better (and stay within my WW goal range), and someone to share dinner with on a regular basis. Yippee!

My cravings lately are to try making pot roast (which I need a weekend afternoon for -- I have all of the ingredients ready [ !!! ]), a WW recipe for brussel sprouts with almonds (my engineer bought a basketful last weekend) or a blog recipe for roasted brussel sprouts with cranberries & balsamic butter (a/k/a how to add calories to something healthy), and the recipe from Eating Well Magazine for sweet & savory beef stew for two. I also really like that this magazine has recipes for TWO PEOPLE, not 8 or 6 or some other impractical number.

And in other cheery (semi-food-related) news, my sweetheart told me about a new LYS in Jersey City near him, Stockinette Knitting Cafe (official site which is currently empty-ish, so this person's blog is actually MUCH more informative, along with some pre-opening forum discussions and JC forum postings) since well, he has seen my insanely large stash and yet, he did not flee into the night. We're both looking forward to hanging out in the newly opened (Sept. 12th) knitting cafe at some point, for differing reasons : cafe & back garden (him), and yarn fondling (moi).

So lately, I guess the Two-Out-Of-Three Rule has been proven true: good job, good home, good boyfriend -- you can usually have 2 out of the 3, but you will rarely have all 3 simultaneously. I'm quite satisfied with the 2 stable jewels that I do have, and am philosophical about the precarious state of the third.

My people!

The Shanghainese, that is. It turns out that my co-worker's husband is from Shanghai. Hooray! I could chat with them yesterday in my mother tongue and it was so comfortable not to have to struggle with my lame Mandarin or worry about blank looks when faced with English language comments or questions. It really helped kill off some of my homesickness.

And by homesickness I mean the sense of dislocation which comes from living in a foreign country which has a difficult native language. I am so grateful that I retained at least some minimal Mandarin, and can understand a little Cantonese. (Shanghainese is not common here, although Meilee's husband tells me that there is an enclave of My People in the North Point area. Hmmm...) I cannot begin to imagine living here in HK without any Chinese knowledge.


Meilee and her husband were kind enough to take me hiking on Cheung Chau island yesterday. Not only was it refreshingly green, so unlike the hustle and bustle of Central or Lan Kwai Fong (a bar district which Meilee hilariously -- and accurately -- decribed as being "like Chinatown for gwailos") but it reminded me that there are relaxing activities to do once you escape from the office.




Being a public holiday, the commercial districts of Cheung Chau (reachable from HK Island via a 50-min. ferry ride) were overflowing with daytrippers like us. Long Island (the literal translation for Cheung Chau) reminded me of Coney Island or the Jersey shore back home: a seaside resort which is very casual. For dinner, we had fresh shrimp, fresh whole fish, and some other dishes involving fresh shrimp. REALLY fresh seafood, as in: swimming around earlier in the day.

No cars are allowed on the island, except for ambulances, so pedicabs are available. Hauling groceries uphill to the various homes perched on the mountainside must suck though. Jiming (my co-worker's husband) pointed out that you could potentially use bicycles, but everyone we ran into (as we wandered around lost, looking for the route back to the ferry) was on foot... carrying groceries.


The other "people" of mine are knitters: I wandered across a yarn shop yesterday stocked with Mondial yarn and a gazillion buttons.


I just happened to be looking into a commercial building while exploring a the "downtown district" and saw a "needlework shop" with what appeared to be a wall of yarn behind the window. I discovered that when properly motivated, I can dredge up my Mandarin. Heh. I found a street vendor on Li Yuen Street West (no, it's not referred to as West Li Yuen Street -- HK uses directional suffixes a la DC or Deattle) who was selling Patons yarn as well.

RIP, P and S

Well, 'tis a sad, sad day, but after years of ominous mutterings, P-and-S Yarns is finally closing. Their building has been sold, and their mailing was a bit ambiguous in terms of possible relocation, but considering the price of Manhattan real estate, I'm dubious.

My co-worker went Thursday night, the first night of the customer liquidation "pre-sale" and reported that it was INSANELY crowded. You would have thought it was a free toilet paper giveaway in the Soviet Union. All that craziness for (drumroll, please) 10% off. Sheesh. Glad I missed it.

Considering today's yucky weather and the lame discount, my mom and I decided to skip it. I am tempted, however, (assuming my neck isn't doing a pretzel imitation) to lure my mom to the last day of Smiley's Yarn Riot on Saturday. Even SHE admitted 10 balls of superwash for $10 was a deal.

In the meantime, I am severely peeved at Blogger Beta, since they seem to have killed off the option to FORMAT my postings in IE and Firefox still gives a 502 error (which they acknowledge on their homepage -- yes, the problem is THAT bad). In addition, now I cannot use ampersands (WTF?!) in my posts. There's supposed to be a scheduled outage Saturday which will theoretically fix the 502 error. We'll see.

And now, to soothe myself, I think I will go start on my niece's Xmas present (the now sadly discontinued Rowan Polar in 646:Silver Lining, knitted up in Berroco's Caribbean Scarf pattern). I'd started it last night at my mom's but ripped it all out as we decided that I needed to use 15s (!) instead of 13s. Their pattern calls for using 2 contrasting colors, but I don't see why I can't use a single color instead. (Oooooh...I used a double negative, a grammatical no-no I still remember being scolded for in the third grade. Oh well.)

Danger, Will Robinson!

So...ummm...as my friend Jane said upon seeing my stash, "You never need to buy yarn again!" She is: So Wrong. She is also not a knitter. Ahem.

This is after I dragged her, oh so "unwillingly" (er, did I forget to mention that she crochets?) to the new yarn store in my nabe, Yarntopia, which just opened on Black Friday. They don't seem to have a website yet, but the local BID has published their store hours, and The New York Observer's real estate column wrote a piece on them too, complete with photo.

Their selection (which is still being unpacked, I think) seems pretty reasonable and not weighted toward insanely expensive stuff (hello? would I be living in this neighborhood if I could afford $36 hanks of yarn?) as evidenced by their selection of Lamb's Pride for one thing.

Just what I need: a nice LYS a mere 4 blocks from home. (Cue visions of Robot from Lost in Space, shrieking "Danger! Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!")