Patience, grasshopper

Well THIS got my attention when I came home. Actually, Typhoon Signal #1 is no biggie. Now No. 8 gets your attention, since everything closes down and you'd better make sure that your various insurance policies are paid up: life, auto, home...yes, life in the subtropics is kinda different.

Oh, and the government has forecasted a higher than normal number of typhoons this year (6 - 8, lucky me) -- thank you, La Nina. And tonight's event was the second earliest warning since WWII. Is my timing for transferring to HK great or what?

Okay, tonight I am really procrastinating, since I am avoiding the revising of a Chinese government document into more polished English. Not only is my Chinese completely not up to the task, but when you see that government circulars have titles such as "Measures on Administration of Chinese Representative Institutions of Foreign Insurance Institutions" (that's actually more lively than the one I'm currently working on, believe it or not) well, hey, would YOU be all excited to get crackin'? So far I am on page 4 of 29. *SOB* There will be a lot of iced tea ahead this evening.

So I know, I know -- I should just quit putzing around and DO IT. Thankfully, even THIS laptop can handle editing WORD documents. Usually. I did snag the mouse from the office though, to help with the highlighting.

Even the desktop at the office though, is not so zippy, leading me to frequently mutter to myself, "Patience, grasshopper" which my co-worker (also named Shirley) finds hilarious, since she also watched Kung Fu while growing up. Not unreasonably, after working next to me for 2 weeks, she asked me today, "Do you always talk to your computer?" Um, yes. And usually not something polite.

So adieu for now. Time to go wrangle with a government policy paper. (Can't I just go to bed and hide under the covers instead?)

UPDATE:

90 minutes later, I have only finished revising 3 more pages --> only 22 more to go! SHOOT ME NOW. Please. At this rate, let's see: 30 min./pg. = a mere 11 hours more. As I said, just shoot me, since my eyes are crossing and I'm practically ready to pass out on the keyboard.

Why am I even doing this you ask? Is this what a corporate researcher does? Not usually, but my colleague says she suspects the senior management is testing my English, which leads me to think that acing this test may not actually be to my benefit (i.e., I could get more of these!).

Lame-o on Lamma

So today I went back to Lamma Island, after doing a load of laundry in my "free" washer & dryer. Took a taxi (down a road with a 45 degree incline!) in order to catch the 2pm ferry (there's one every 1/2 hr on Sundays) and as soon as I got to the pier I realized that I had left my cellphone plugged into its charger at the apartment. Now this would not be such a big deal...except for the fact that I was supposed to text Christine (that's her above) once I was on the ferry, so that she could meet me. Since I had never met her before (she is a friend of a friend of a friend) this was kind of key.


After some stress, confusion, and embarrassment (apparently my permanent state of being here in HK), we did finally meet up, and along with another friend of Christine's, we went off for some yummy Thai food in a hole in the wall establishment that Sally (the other person) frequented. While I would not be bold enough to wander in there on my own, I was perfectly content to follow along meekly after the 2 British expats.


Post-pork pad si yew & chicken massaman curry, we went off for what Christine called "a little bit of a hike"...silly me: I forgot the classic sense of British understatement. We scrambled up the rocky path to the peak near the island's windmill with no problem. However, the DOWNhill path left me angst-ridden (I suck at scrambling DOWN rocky, sandy paths). This would be an example of one of the reasons why I would never audition for The Amazing Race, as my teammate would want to strangle me at the amount of time I took to climb down. (And wandering around frequently lost, in a country where I don't speak the language, while trying to get somewhere before a certain time, well, that would sum up the other.)


But back to more positive thoughts: Lamma is beautiful once you get away from the built-up areas. (Please note: buildings are limited to 3 stories, but no one mandated that they are actually aesthetically pleasing.) And the hiking -- this includes the walk back to your own home -- would definitely keep you in shape. (Yes indeed, I will be sleeping soundly tonight.)


Lamma is also a great antidote to the frenetic pace of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, which is kind of exemplified by the night skyline.

Can't believe that my trip is halfway over. The pace has been so nuts that I can only post here on the weekends. Hopefully I will know more about my future life here (i.e., transfer details, like, oh, say, salary) after Tuesday, since I will be speaking with NY HR on Tuesday night (finally) -- wish me luck.

Pictograms are my friend

So I discovered during a call to my mom last night (Saturday morning, NY time) that my Shanghainese now has a Cantonese accent. I am SO CONFUSED! When I complained to my mom that I now sounded Cantonese, she replied matter-of-factly, "Of course. You will be influenced by the languages which surround you."

Ergo, my Shanghainese sounds vaguely Cantonese. My Mandarin sounds sort of Shanghainese. (Actually my Mandarin probably sounds like an utter mishmash: an American. raised by Shanghainese parents, trying to speak a third language.) And according to my boss in NYC, my English sounds a bit Chinese-inflected (the tones, the lilt, etc.). Unsurpisingly, my brain is utterly dizzy.

And an hour of conversing in Mandarin leaves me feeling exhausted. (No wonder some Chinese colleagues zip up during English language meetings.) I'm sure my Chinese grammar is an utter train wreck, but as my co-worker Shirley (yes, it gets very confusing, esp. since we site right next to each other) kindly pointed out, "But it more important that you can communicate" (i.e., I can still get my point across; I'm just not grammatically correct). My reply is that she now has not one, but TWO, 6 year old daughters. Heh.

So when I go out, I have 2 options: (1) play the ignorant foreigner (not so far from the truth) and stick to straight English and hope for the best, since many people can speak or at least [like me] understand some English, or (2) try out my Mandarin and hope they don't then launch into a rapidfire stream of Chinese (at which point I revert to option #1).

Sometimes, I can actually grasp a lot of everyday Cantonese, but am just not able to speak it, leading to moments of surpise ("wait -- she actually understood what I said? oops").

Example #1: co-workers lapse back into Cantonese after conversing politely with me in English, and one person reveals that she is 4 months pregnant, at which point I burst out [in English] "Congratulations!"

Example #2: Shirley #2 is helping me explain to the tailor that the once superbaggy/droopy pants from my black pinstripe suit which she altered for me are now a bit too snug (oops). Tailor (reasonably) "Why? I measured her in them before altering." Shirley #2 (apologetically) "Well we did just come from [a business] lunch." Tailor: "Well tell her not to eat so much!" whereupon I burst out laughing.

(Which reminds me: with all of these business meals, I desperately want to go buy a bathroom scale somewhere, but all of those chichi shopping guides to HK don't mention basic household goods like soapdishes and scales! At least my clothes still fit, so I must be doing okay. Plus, the portion sizes here are MUCH more sane.)

In my dreams, our largest Asian office would be in Shanghai, and not here in HK, so that I could probably get around easily... although during my last trip in 2006, I learned Shanghai has so many new non-local arrivals that Mandarin may be more useful than Shanghainese.

Therefore, I thought this photo of Campbell's Select (American co.) Russian "Borsch" soup, supertitled in Chinese, was oh so appropriate. Oh, and the exchange rate is approx. HK$7 = US$1 so the soup is really only about US$2, which is quite reasonable really. Also, the "please give up this seat" sign above from the MTR...succinct, no?

Food here is cheap, especially if you buy goods produced on the mainland (NOT!) unless you go of course to superswanky restaurants targeting silly white folk. Even after dividing by 7, some of the prices there make me pale, which is quite a feat considering how much sun I'm picking up from walking around.

Speaking of "premium" (i.e., expensive) services focusing on expats, our nice service flats (apt. bldg.) does not charge for the laundry room; you only need to buy "washing powder" (detergent). I guess the rent here is so steep that unlike the Wynn Las Vegas, they don't nickel and dime you (or US$5 or US$10 you, in the Wynn's case). So it's time for me to go pick up stuff from the dryers, and then head off to meet a friend of a friend on Lamma Island.

Jackhammer magnet

Yes, that's what I am: a jackhammer magnet. This morning, amongst the bamboo scaffolding (hey, metal exoskeletons are a BAD idea in the land of constant 97% humidity) facing my studio service flat, jackhammers. The OTHER side of my flat (HK is just filled with sliver buildings, so at least I get a cross breeze...and mosquitos ) was simultaneously being assaulted by more jackhammers, as the next building bookending mine is under construction/renovation. And at LUNCH today, in the swanky looking Kowloon Hotel, yet MORE jackhammers as they renovate their restaurant area. So evidently, they have followed me from my home, facing Frederick Douglass "4 years of roadwork hell" Circle, to halfway around the world in Midlevels, HK.

Speaking of things which leave me bemused, why is my tap water yellow? Just a question... now I know why HKers are voracious bottled water drinkers. (Oh the plastic...)

Also ran across a Chinese language travel program on TV today. They were going to Chengdu to see PANDAS! They also mentioned the "working vacation" package where you pay for the privilege of scooping out panda poop. Remember: at 40 lbs. of bamboo per day, there is a LOT of panda poop to scoop.

The interviewer was (understandably) finding them adorable...until they started climbing all over her -- then she was squeaking in alarm. They were probably looking for treats or just plain curious, being rambunctious adolescents and not placid adults. However it IS a little alarming when young bears the size of a collie start pawing at you. Pandas may be vegetarian, but they still have all of the hardware of their carnivorous cousins, as the reporter's clothing demonstrated afterward: giant holes the sizes of US quarters / HK$10 coins.

Speaking of food, a former colleague took me to a yummy Japanese restaurant on the Kowloon side of HK. I got lost twice on the way to meeting up with her, so now I started off a identifying myself, when she picked up, as "This is your idiot child calling again." Luckily the subway here is wired for underground, AND the exits are numbered and lettered, making for easier logistics ("Meet me at Exit F of Sheung Wan Station")

And opposite to the MTR (subway), a colleague and I went to the top of Sheraton Kowloon today for some coffee, and a spectacular view. Or it should've been a spectacular view -- The air quality was Beijing-esque in its opacity. Oh my.

So I will leave with a nifty shot of Kowloon at night. I go beddy-bye now. (Thunk!)

A/C = happy me

Today I made the happy discovery that not all HK ferries are open air: the ferry to Lamma Island is air-conditioned. Oh, happy me! While it is not yet truly hot, it is still insanely humid (a drop of water on the kitchen counter will remain there from morning till...well, the next day, unless I wipe it up...quite mindboggling, especially after Easter week in Vegas) and humid air + mildly warm weather + any exertion at all = very sweaty people.

A/C is especially appreciated since the ferries here bob and weave rather more (i.e., MUCH more) violently than any that cross NY Harbor, and well, I don't usually get seasick, but I really don't do well in hot weather. (Yes, yes, I know -- very ironic that I'm being transferred to a subtropical climate. C'est la vie.)

My expat neighbors in the building (Brit, Aussie, and South African) decided to head off to Lamma Island today, instead of Macau, since one of their HK colleagues offered to be a tour guide. I was happy to tag along and add to the melange of accents. We had a lovely tea break at an organic farm which raised rabbits (fear not: the bunnies provided fertilizer, not food) and chatted with some Americans at the next table who lived in Shenzhen (which is right over the border in Mainland China) who are teaching English at the international school there. I particularly liked their novel re-use of bottles on the garden. Oh, and my lemongrass tea was yummity.

Of course, the charmingly bucolic aura on Lamma was rather spoiled by the 3 giant smokestacks from the sprawling power station which dominate the horizon.

I also engaged in my first bit of bargaining as we all bought straw hats to stop from burning to a crisp. While I know that HK$25 vs. HK$28 is not much in the scheme of things, it's just the principle of the thing. And it's something I've got to get the hang of. It even (mostly) fit my gigantic head. Shocking.

On the way back to HK Island on the (violently bobbing) ferry, I received my 2nd call on my new cellphone, which I think is darn cute. It's just a super-basic Sony Ericsson which has no camera, etc., but does have FM radio, which is great, b/c I don't have a working radio in the apartment. I did, however, finally remember tonight that I can tune into "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR (where I learned that Barack Obama is apparently a lousy bowler) and WCWP-FM, a NY metro jazz station, via the web.

Then this evening I went off to Lan Kwai Fong (the expat ghetto) for some spectacularly good sushi with a work colleague (a/k/a the phone call on the ferry). It turns out that my posting here will be perfect for his unit's research needs, as it involves facilities for Chinese tourists and our thorough & lengthy work-related discussion more than justified the hefty price tag. Re: the fab sushi -- if you judge the quality of the sushi by how little soy and/or wasabi I use, then put it this way: I used almost none (and could've used zero, really). Through about 10 dishes. Yum.

Okay, I should really go to bed now, since I will have to figure out yet more new & different forms of public transit in the morning, since I'll be working at a different office for the rest of the month. And not only will I get to wrestle with yet more new & different office connectivity issues (problems) but I'll be helping to unpack the library there, as we've just moved in to new, and most likely temporary (!), offices. Sigh.

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.

256MB of RAM

That is what this crappy laptop has, and that is what I'll be stuck with while working in Hong Kong until April 25th. (Breathe, Shirley, breathe...) It makes working on anything difficult, since it is sooooo slooooow, and it makes opening Outlook for work impossible, so that I am reduced to using the remote login web interface, which is unbelievably sucky.

Okay, enough bitching and moaning (for the moment). Hopefully, next week I'll be able to use a free (open) PC at our other HK office (i.e., the one where I'll be relocating to, vs. the pressure cooker HQ tower I was working in this week...on my decrepit laptop).

I think I am feeling a bit mopey because I'm tired. This afternoon, I was actually ridiculously pleased to go grocery shopping, so that I could eat something besides peanut butter on toast when I stagger home from work @ 10pm every night. (I refuse to be any food produced in China though -- I've researched too many product recalls originating from the PRC.)

And the serviced apartment I am staying at, while compact (470 sq. ft.) is very pleasant, with a great view and sleek furnishings. (Small = minimalist = modern / contemporary = sleek) They also really believe in applying the serviced apartment concept to its fullest: there are no kitchen sponges for washing any dishes!

Actually, the building is nice enough, and well maintained enough that I'd stay here, or in one of their other properties for my transfer... assuming I could afford it: still no info on the transfer package/offer.

Ah well. In more amusing news, my hair was absolutely flat while in Vegas, the land of 0 humidity. It even approached the straightness of what most people assume Chinese hair is like. In HK, I've yet to see the humidity drop below 85%, even at midnight (which reminds me: must remember to take my melatonin tonight in my continuing quest to slay the jet lag demon). I mean, check out the view at night. Ergo, my hair has accordingly turned into a 'fro. Whoops.

But the view really does make a difference: psychologically, it feels much more open, even though this place would make most NYC apartments look palatial. The city is very vertical, and reminds me strongly of Honolulu: skyscrapers stacked on the sides of lush mountainsides, surrounding pretty harbors and beaches. The roads make San Francisco switchbacks look like geriatric wimps though. Wow. I mean, the neighborhood I am staying in is called Midlevels for a reason, and The Peak is, well, self-evident, in terms of topography, real estate price and consequent social status. In fact, the apartment came stocked with a thick glossy called THE PEAK which I have not felt like rubbernecking at yet. (The issue of HONG KONG TATLER with Pansy Ho on the cover, however, I will be all over.)

The cab ride to visit a friend who works for Lehman and lives in Repulse Bay was (a) vertiginous, (b) scenic, and (c) long by HK standards, about 30 min. Cabbies the world over appear to hate being stuck in traffic, so this one took a route over The Peak, instead of via the Aberdeen Tunnel which was apparently a mess at the time. (My mom would have been sooooo carsick with all of the hairpin swerves.)

Andy and his family live the glamorous expatriate lifestyle one hears of, as demonstrated by their view. Holy...! Though my favorite shot from their balcony is this one to the right. Yowsa. And the size of their apartment...!

Real estate awe aside, it was so nice to speak with someone from home. In American English. Folks with the same cultural references (hey, they even lived in Manhattan before transferring here) which didn't require me to mentally pick through my skimpy Mandarin.

I can easily see becoming homesick, especially since my future boss was blunt and advised me that my first 6 months here will suck, both workwise and otherwise. (Hey, better blunt honesty than the primrose path.) Balancing that, as Andy pointed out, since their is indeed a large expatriate community, people can be very friendly. Exhibit 1: I am off to Macau tomorrow for a day trip with some neighbors I met in the elevator today, IT consultants who've been living in the building for a few months.

Planning ahead (not)

As usual, it is the night before I leave on a trip and I am still puttering around and packing at some ungodly hour. Oops.

Oh well. I don't have much to do in the morning except get myself to EWR and then the correct gate, since I've already checked in online and printed out my boarding pass. Once I'm seated, I can pretty much pass out on the plane.

On the other hand, you could say that I'm not really spectacularly late -- Oh no, I am merely adjusting my body clock to Vegas time, where it is a mere 1am, prime time on The Strip.

Actually, I didn't do too badly during the day cleaning away stuff (I can see the floor in the living room now!) until I went to meet my friend Jen (belated birthday dinner) and then my friend Laura (preemptive goodbye drinks, as she is leaving for the Foreign Service before I get back from Vegas). Those activities did rather take up, oh, 7 hours (but they were VISE -- Very Important Social Engagements). The MTA didn't deposit me back on my doorstop until almost 11:30pm.

Speaking of goodbyes, I thought I'd bookend this post with photos of the late Frontier Casino (RIP).

Time to go finish packing and taking care of various odds & ends.

Back on Saturday morning. Bye!

Viva Las Vegas!

Friday was my last day in the office for 5 weeks -- woohoo! So okay, I stayed till 10pm finishing up projects and closing out all of my 1st quarter billing, but I didn't really mind since I am outta there! (Did I mention I won't be in the office for 5 weeks?)

On Sunday, I am off to Vegas with my friend Sam and his sister Sarah. I will also get to meet his dad (!) who has decided to join us in our revelry. Hmmm... It'll be nice to see Sarah again though, as she is no longer paid by her employer to gallivant down from Boston for work (i.e., that particular client engagement ended & I think her current project is in...Cleveland? Not sure, but I'll find out this week).

It's been so long since it was warm (what DOES 73 degrees fell like again?) that I wound up calling my friend Margaret to ask about appropriate clothing. The ironic thing is that both Vegas and HK has the same temp, but with diametrically opposing levels of humidity. Oh boy.

So as part of finding appropriate clothing, I was digging through my warm weather gear and discovering many dresses and tops which will join the pile of shorts destined to get the hell out of my home, probably in another vast haul. Last time I dragged 4 giant sacks of clothes to Housing Works, and 4 even larger sacks to Bottomless Closet (plug, plug, plug -- I really like them AND they make it easy to contribution, unlike some places).

Last night (and this morning, and pretty much any time lately) my laptop is running so freakishly slow that I am losing my mind. There is even a lag as I MOVE MY CURSOR. I fear that I have picked up lots of damn computer cooties. I hate it, and wonder if the Geek Squad will clean out my 'puter for me when I come back from HK. I've already looked up some of the gazillion processes and killed several (no, I do not need the Dell Media Experience running in the background ALL THE TIME) but still...hate it. Hate the lag.

When my mom called this morning at 9am (why do moms never wait till, say, 11am??) and woke me up, I was thirsty so I staggered out through the living room and into the kitchen for a glass of water and my living is a freaking mess. As in: where is the floor? Are there any horizontal surfaces left? I hate it. (Apparently I hate lots of things this morning.) Must go attack living room now. Argh.

Must remember to breathe deeply...

...and not panic about my upcoming schedule: 2 more days in the office --> Vegas for a week, for a long-planned jaunt with my friends Sam & Sarah (and their dad!) --> back home for ONE day --> leave for Hong Kong for 4 weeks. EEK!

The office loaner laptop I received for the trip is ancient and has (wait for it...) 256MB of RAM. Hold me back!

It also lacks any Chinese language recognition software so I will haul it back tomorrow (today) for our IT gal (NOT a guy! Ha!) to install it. She has also granted me permission to install my beloved third party apps (Palm desktop, image editing software, etc.) as long as they all magically evaporate before I return said laptop to her in May.

Ironically, Vegas and HK have very similar air temps...with diametrically opposed humidity levels. Vegas: 18%. Hong Kong: 81%. Oh boy. Well, at least it's not August, as with my last business trip there.

The following story was sent to me by my possible future boss, who's currently quarantined in Beijing:

Cub Scout splittists

(you can't MAKE this stuff up)

Just in case we need a reminder that China is a country with ALL media controlled by the government, the net connections for him & his wife have "mysteriously" gone down a lot this week...hmmm, so if I send him an e-mail with the word "Tibet" in it, will his computer blow up entirely? (assuming he even gets said e-mail).

Speaking of which, I desperately need to finish seaming and knitting the buttonband for this baby sweater for their baby girl before I see them in HK...a fine use of various oddballs I had (Cascade Sierra Quattro), some oddball contributions from a friend or two, and okay, maybe ONE purchase (the pink skein).

Come to think of it, I should go party with my ballwinder again for the pink skein. (Ever since my friend Margaret pointed out that "ballwinder" sounds vaguely lewd, I feel faintly embarrassed using the term.)

I'm all out (gah!)

...of shorts. Started going through my closet today, preparing some clothing for (could it be? do I even remember?) warm weather, since I'll be in Vegas on vacation next week, and then in sub-tropical Hong Kong for a month. And I've discovered that EVERY. Single. Pair. Is. TOO. LARGE. Agh!

Skorts, shorts, skirts -- there's an ever growing pile of discarded, destined for Housing Works, clothing accumulating next to my bedroom door. I stopped counting after 8. And my favorite pair of turquoise cotton shorts....wah!

I know, I know -- it's a luxury problem. But I am out of shorts. I wonder if Century 21 is selling resort wear yet...if so, I sense a lunchtime sprint.

Today at lunch, I ran off to C21 for a leather passport cover. Now normally I pooh-pooh such frippery, but the new microchipped passports come with an entire set of care instructions: not, too hot, not wet, don't bend, etc. etc. And the covers are now stiff, like hardback books, and no longer flexible like those old bank books. They've also moved the photo in a page, instead of on the inside/p. 2/ so a cover is actually feasible now. I'm trying to find a nice leather cover that's also long enough to hold the boarding pass.

Yes, I discovered that my previous (old) passport would have expired on April 5th, while I would be in Hong Kong (oops) so my employer (a) paid the now $100 fee (!!!) for a renewal, and (b) paid the dunno-how-much fee to expedite the application.

Right now, I'm going to hide from all of my cranky-making problems by watching my Tivoed premiere episode of Dancing With The Stars.

I love my ballwinder

...but can I say that this stil took me a freakin' long time to do?

I'm going to bed now.

Yes, it's true -- I'm still alive

Life has been very eventful since last I posted -- I'm now single (end of my 2 year relationship in October -- coincidentally, shortly after our 2 year anniversary...), joined Weight Watchers and lost 30 lbs...(resulting in vast donations to Bottomless Closet, an excellent charity where my now swimmingly large suits went to find good homes), and my friend Margaret has gotten married and moved to Seattle (SOB!), and many other changes...but those would be the most notable.

After Art and I broke up, I joined WW, rejoined NYSC (M, W, Sat), and started taking ceramics classes again on Tuesday nights. This left me with not a lot of time or inclination to knit. Oops.

So when I finally finished a garter stitch tank top made of Tahki Willow in a lovely shade of rose, and discovered that it was GIGANTIC (and this was before I lost 30 lbs.) I just didn't have the heart to rip out the whole thing:

Well, the time has come. I've been getting the urge lately to pick up my knitting needles again, and one of the things that's crossed my mind is, "Gee, that Willow is really a beautiful yarn..."

And so, last night, while watching (well, while having it play in the background) my Tivo'd copy of Omen III: The Final Conflict (which is relaly laughably bad, BTW -- but then, very few things from 1981 have aged well, except Sam Neill...yum), I ripped out the entire sweater. Sigh.

It now awaits a date with my ballwinder, once it has finished drying.


In the meantime, I am working on a new baby sweater for my co-worker Shirley in HK, who had a baby boy in January.

Why so diligent for a distant colleague, you ask? Well, I will be working in the HK office for almost all of April, so perhaps a baby gift would be good.

Also, as a back up gift, I have ordered some t-shirts from my favorite rude baby gift shop, T Shirt Hell, a site so raunchy, the server at work blocks it and gives me a nastygram if I try to access it from the office. HA!

I also offered to wind my co-worker Sally's stash of New Zealand wool since I bought a ballwinder (for $20 on sale!) last year and just love the damn thing. I'm not sure why she asked her friend to buy her wool while in NZ, since Sally says she is allergic to wool (this would include while knitting, no?) but hey, I am certainly NOT the one to be pointing fingers about stash building...

Many more projects (and events) to catch up on from the past year, but I need to actually go do some knitting now, before I have dinner with my friend Laura...or at least go wind some yarn so I can feel vaguely productive -- shopping on ebay for my HK trip & clothes that actually fit me does NOT count as being productive in my mind.

(I'm remembering why I took a hiatus from this thing, as it is a VAST TIME SUCK.)

Stressed Out Slacker

Yes, I suck.

But in my defense, I have to say that having my mom in the hospital from over the holidays (starting on my birthday, ironically) has somewhat thrown my schedule way, Way, WAY the hell out of whack. Oh, and did I mention that I started physical therapy this month too? And the potential trip to Taiwan for work coming up? And the follow-up surgery for my mom next week? And that my apartment is so messy that it scares me and I hide from it at my boyfriend's place? Oh, and the mountain of dirty laundry waiting to pounce on me when I look for clean clothes? And... and... aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!

Um, yes, I'm just a bit stressed.

But I have a gazillion photos to download of all of my completed Xmas projects/presents, along with a few things in process, so I have to get off my ass and post.

But first, I need to clear off my bed so I can sleep later tonight.

Knitting kangaroos!

Okay, this is just so darn cute!

And now, back to the Moguls scarf. And Nature Cardigan Redux.

Terror and Joy

Terror: Must knit, knit, knit, knit, knit...until my fingers fall off or Xmas arrives, whatever happens first.

Have to finish the Moguls scarf for my 6' tall nephew, and the Nature Cotton cardigan for my great-nephew. The Moguls design calls for 360 sts/row @ 6 rows/stripe & 12 stripes. My mind balks at doing the math, even allowing for my arbitrary truncation to 310 sts/row (62" vs. 72" is perfectly acceptable in my mind).

So I am trying to turn this
into a completed version of this:
which right now does look rather like a demented, mutant ruffle, but holds the promise of actually being kinda cool, and semi-reversible. It is, sadly, a wee bit too unwieldy (as well as heavy) to wrangle during a morning subway commute. Thank GAWD that my office will be closing early this Friday. 8-1/2 stripes down, 3-1/2 left to go. Ack.

Oh yeah, Plymouth Encore Worsted on 9s.

And I am working on a variation of a previous Nature Cotton cardigan
I made for a friend's baby (still in use! yes!!) and adapting it for my great-nephew. Considering the gauge, it is just whipping along. I started this week, and have so far finished both front panels, and 1-1/2 sleeves.

Joy: Blogger is finally out of beta and now works in Firefox!

Detour in Yarntopia

From the stash:
2 lovely skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted in Old Sage

Proposed project:
Double-knitted Xmas scarf for my nephew using a Knitpicks pattern from their aptly named Gift List Scarves booklet of 15 free designs, specifically, the Moguls Scarf

Verdict:
He would prefer another color. Oy.

Alternatives:
Well, I have lots of nice navy blue Puno alpaca from the Riot but nothing appropriate in the same gauge (20 sts) for the contrasting color. Also from the Riot, a bag of beautiful burgundy Reynolds Lopi (14 sts) but with the same problem re: contrasting color. Or...(whatever it is, see: lack of contrasting yarn, above)

And people wonder why I still wind up buying more yarn despite my insanely large stash.

To the left,
I have just 4 words to describe my fiendish plot for a friend:
Cincinnati Bengals jester hat!

To the right:
my completed Xmas scarf for my niece Kim being blocked, which used Rowan Polar in Silver Lining on 15s (hey, I knit really tight, okay?) Selected from my stash! hooray! and approved by Kim! Double yay!

Rudy & friends

They did it again!! The Bears took the Rams' kick return (did I use the correct term?) and scored a TOUCHDOWN! What the...?!? And apparently the defensemen have all left for the evening, as there is still 4:41 left in the 4th quarter and the score is 42 - 27. What the...?! It's almost like the scores for some Knicks games!


Coincidentally, I seem to have made football food for our Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer viewing. (Yes, Rudy & Herbie & Santa -- no, not Rudy the Sean Astin football movie.) Hmmmm...

Thanks to one of Paula Deen's sons, we had bacon-wrapped breadsticks dredged in parmesan (right) where the breadsticks did a fine, fine job of soaking up essence de oink-oink, and the ever-classic pig(let)s in blankets (above, top/left), rounded out with chicken wings a la Good Season (a last minute, panic-stricken inspiration when Fresh Direct forgot to pack the marinade). I also made apple cider and Alton Brown's recipe for fresh eggnog, and miraculously managed not to give anyone food poisoning (raw eggs, pork, chicken...so many ways to Go Wrong, bacteriologically speaking).

We rounded our evening of heckling (Santa and Donner are jerks! which won't stop me from watching again next year) and gawking (does Frosty need special ed or what?) with a "very special visit" to the world of the Star Wars Holiday Special. Oh. My. God. It does not improve upon repeat viewing. My friend Sam brought it and he and another friend were both curious so the rest of us humored them.

As my discerning sweetie said, "Even when I was 5, I knew it was a piece of crap." It's so bad that even George Lucas wants to hide it under a rock, though I do admire an IMDBer's exhortation to "in the name of all that is holy please watch this pile of crap!" My advice, however, is to watch it only in the company of like-minded friends and with large quantities of alcohol (or knitting) to deaden the pain.

I choose to believe that my laptop exerted executive privilege when it refused to play the rest of the movie after an hour...which felt like 8 hours...but was actually about 37 minutes before it ended, according to IMDB. So although we got to watch the oddly pornographic wookie dream sequence (eeeeeeewwww...) with Diahann Carroll, we did not make it to the bit where Carrie FIsher sings some Life Day ditty.

Sam, however, owes my boyfriend BIG TIME, as watching the whole thing (again) was like fingernails on a chalkboard for him. So Sam -- who does not follow football at all -- will find that he will be watching the Super Bowl with us. Heh!

A lid, a li-wu, and a lotta fluffy yarn

So I unadopted and rolled back to Firefox 1.5.0.8 but it doesn't seem to have made a difference: I still can't log in to Blogger Beta. Dammit. I am stuck with Internet Exploder 6.0 apparently. Grrrr....

On the bright side, I...um...went back to the Yarn Riot and bought some more of that nice rose-colored Wool-ease (in case I had the urge to double the yarn, that would only bring the ENTIRE cost of the sweater up to a whopping $32), and another bag of the turquoise-multi Bernat Sox (Hippi Hot, $10 for 10 sk) for my mom, as she has been eyeing my Cervinia Calzetteria from last year's Riot, and I know I will not be wanting to give up MY bag of Sox.
Believe it or not, I did actually manage to finish a project in the midst of this orgy of yarn buying. What my sweetie jokingly calls a lid -- finished in the nick of time, considering the beginning of true winter weather is about to make itself felt -- is made from a ball of Lion Brand Wool-ease Thick & Quick which I unwisely bought years ago. You can't really see the seed stitch around the brim, even if you click to enlarge the pic, and you will mercifully probably never see the pompom I was contemplating adding from the scrap yarn.
I had also made about a foot of progress on my niece's Xmas present, using the Berroco Air, Caribbean Scarf pattern, when I decided I didn't like the pattern...(You can swatch for gauge, but not for design, and if unless someone else can think of a way to do THAT, I'd love to hear it.)
So I ripped out the entire thing (ribbit...) and instead replaced it with a design of my own combining seed stitch and and "relief" pattern of a diamond. (Click on the photo to see an enormous enlargement...) You do not want to KNOW how many times I ripped this scarf out before I gave up and stuck with this pattern on the right.

Oh, and "liwu" means gift in Mandarin Chinese.

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.)