My mom and dad are at *my place in the Keys* and I'm not

Sucks to be me right now, huh?

Mom and Dad are spending a week at The Cat House with Tom. Dad's a Renaissance Man and can do anything. At 80 he's more active and productive than I am. And he looks younger than I do.

Dad and Tom are building walls, from what I gather from the daily (sometimes hourly) phone calls. They're building a wall between (I think) the master bedroom and its closet. It already had a wall, but I want a pocket door in it to save space, so they've worked on that. They've made soffits for the air conditioning ductwork. They're going to make a closet in the upstairs bedroom. There are no closets upstairs; lots of space under the eaves of the house, but the ceiling is so low in those that only "short" things can be hung. Where did the people who used to live there put all their stuff?

(Actually, Tom found a big stack of shirts left in one of them. And a lot of junk was just tossed into the backyard and under the house.)

Mom has been cleaning windows and sweeping. Those floors catch and hold onto dirt and dust; they're down to the subflooring and it's not in good shape. The cats shed enough to create entire new cats.

On Monday they'll head up to their favorite vacation spot near Daytona and spend two weeks there with some of their friends. It used to be a little 40s or 50s Mom and Pop-style motel right between A1A and the ocean. Maybe 10 rooms. It's been sold several times in the last few years for increasingly insane amounts of money and will eventually be razed and turned into luxury condos. I hate to see the remaining pieces of Old Florida sold off and gone forever.

We first went to Florida in 1955 or '56, after Dad's parents, sister, and brother-in-law moved to Miami. I vaguely remember that first trip. I was convinced that the ocean was in Muck and Poppa's back yard and I was terribly disappointed when it wasn't. That trip is when my life-long love affair with Florida started.

We visited them every summer for two weeks. At that time we didn't have any friends whose families took vacations anywhere, much less 1000 miles south. We spent most of the time inside--they had air conditioning. We'd play in the yard, go to the beach a couple of times (Dad absolutley hates getting sand in the car), go shopping some (I mean, wow, they had a K-Mart back when there were none up here!), eat at the very old McDonald's nearby, take walks in the evening, play with the colorful snails that crawled up the shady side of the house.

At least once each trip, we'd all pile into the car and take a ride through the Everglades (mosquitos are BAD in the summer; I can't wait to go in the winter) or out to the (then) new Miami airport, or, once, to Key West. I was five that year, I think. I was not at all interested in the gorgeous water, palm trees, and other sights; all I remember is that I was really really thirsty, and I remember bumping across countless bridges. When we got to Key West, it stunk of fish. There'd been a recent fish-kill; we didn't want to stay long. I remember nothing else of the island.

And now I'm going to live 30 miles from it. I still don't quite believe it.

Lazy days

Nope, not just summer's lazy days. It's a way of life for me, unfortunately. I mean, not unfortunately for me, just for those who have to deal with me and my ways.

Tom's heading back to our place in the Keys early tomorrow morning, taking a load of stuff to Jennifer, then on to our place in the Keys to start demolition on the deck in preparation for the tenting next week (if still in place, the whole deck will have to be tented, too, and that just costs too much), moving the electrical box thingy, whatever it's called, so it's in the wash alcove in the kitchen instead of in the master closet. He's also taking more of our houseplants with him; they can't do much worse in the shade down there than they do inside during the winter up here. He's taking a generator, just in case. He'll have the electricity finally turned on after the box thingy is moved. The toilets have to have their seals or whatever replaced so they don't leak (not sure what's going on with that, since they weren't leaking when Tom was in there right after the auction).

Meanwhile, I'm up here in the cold, scraping ice off the windshield of the car, shivering as I drive to work. Okay. I don't scrape the windshield; I turn the defroster on and let it work its magic. I'm lazy.

Speaking of the Prius, I love it. It's got pep when it's needed, which isn't that often but it's nice to know the option is there. It's getting about 45 mpg and costs about $22 to fill it when it appears to be empty (still has about 3 gallons in there when it's crying wolf). I love the way it handles, it has a great stereo with 6 speakers, a cd changer, and (for now) XM radio. I know, I know. I hate Sirius since it took over XM, but it's fun to have anyway. So there. I said it.

Thanksgiving was a busy time with visiting family and family visiting and so on. My family got together at Betty's house and Tom's family got together at his sister-in-law's house 10 miles away, so we got to visit with both. Zippy was happy that his cousins Henley, Millie, and Benji came along to Betty's, and Deja and Snickers were at the Post's house. He was one tuckered out little boy, although not as worn out as he'd have been if his One True Love, his cousin Max, had visited.

My dog is gay, NTTAWWT*. Or maybe he and Max are just trying for dominance, which looks the same when it's two male dogs.

Tom's daughter and her boyfriend drove up from Ft. Lauderdale and stayed over the break. It was nice to have them here.

I've been knitting some Christmas presents (gee, aren't you happy you're related to me?) and working on a pair of black socks for me. I need black socks. I put clear silver-lined beads instead of working the hearts on one sock; unfortunately it looks better stitched than with beads, but what the heck.

I'm rereading Eclipse, for some reason. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I did the first time, probably because I can imagine the actors in the roles. As for New Moon the book, I think it's the hardest of the four to read since Bella is so catatonic through most of it. I like the movie more than the book, which is unusual for me. I may go see the movie again; Kara's been twice and will go if she's not worn out from grooming dogs 60 hours a week.

I'm looking forward to Christmas Break--oops, I mean Winter Break. I'm leaving for Florida after school on the 18th. I've only driven to Florida (Sanibel) once and figured that was enough and flew after that, but the Prius is so easy on gas that I'm going to try it again. I'll stop in Orlando on the way down and back, both to break the trip and to see the family. Maybe they'll go to our place in the Keys (read: if we can borrow the condo) for a few days, which would be nice. I think I'm going to go to the beach on Christmas Day. I've never had the opportunity to do that before. I don't think it gets much better than that!

On the work front, I have a brand-new Xerox 4595 to complicate make my job so much easier. It's twice as fast as the old ones, works a zillion times better, and jams only occasionally and it's really easy to fix them. I <3 it. It's so very fast that jobs are finished almost before I scan them and I'm having a hard time keeping them separate. But what a problem to have.

After 3, time to go home!



*not that there's anything wrong with that

Black and Red

So. Yeah. I finished my Twilight-cover-art-inspired socks last evening. What do I do now? It's kind of like after I finished reading the Twilight Saga, nothing else appealed. Others I've talked to in rl are the same way (not all of them, but enough women I consider to be sane are saying the same thing). What knitting project is next?

I really want it to be Shipwreck, but that's a pattern that's not suitable for knitting during odd down moments. It's going to be a committment. Tom suggested that I save that for condo knitting this summer. I'll probably work on it in the car on the way down and back. I went ahead and rolled one hank into a ball. I've got a couple thousand (I hope) 6/0 glass beads in red, black, and silver-lined clear. I really have no idea how to determine what color I want where on the shawl; I'll have to figure it out as I go, I guess, since I'm not going to use the 5000 beads that the pattern calls for. I don't want a stripe of all red, or all white, or all black, or red and white, or red and black, or whatever when I get done with it. I'm really going to have to think when I knit this one. No mindless tv knitting.

I went to Ravelry and printed off page after page of discussion of this shawl and its challenges. Fortunately, the designer has been an active participant and clears up a lot of the issues.

I can't get the entire chart to print, but she has each section written out, so with luck I won't need a chart. I really mess up when I used even a simple chart, so I'm glad that she spelled them out.

So, I've got three hanks of Bloodlust All That Glitters yarn dyed by yarnlust, dozens of vials of beads in three colors, the two needles necessary to start the project, and alllllll of those pages packed away in a plastic shoe box to take to Florida in June. I may have to start the center long before then; it depends on how stupid I'm feeling. If a simple chart kicks my ass, I cannot imagine what this heirloom-quality lace will do to me.

I've never before felt like I just have to knit something. There are lots of patterns that appeal to me, but never has one jumped into my brain and taken up residence there. The very first time I saw Shipwreck, I knew that I had to knit it. I also know that it will probably take years to finish (hello? 5000 beads), and that's okay. I'll probably end up using it as a decorative table cloth most of the time. By the time it's done, we should be living in South Florida permanently, so I might be able to wear it during a cold snap.

But that leaves me without a current project. I cannot rest until I find something that I want to do and get it organized. I have two hanks of Twilight-cover-art-inspired worsted that I want to use to make a neck warmer and a hat, but I just can't get too enthusiastic about that now. I haven't seen a hat pattern that I really, really want to do with it, so I'll wait.

I dug through my stash of Claudia fingering and came up with some gorgeous red and gray sportweight. There are four separate hanks of it; I'm just hoping that I have enough to finish a pair of socks. I started knitting last night using a pair of size 1 dpns; it's heavier yarn, but I didn't want to go any higher in size because they look like they'll be nice and squooshy on the feet. I think it's Claudia's Buckeyes colorway, which, oddly, is very similar to christinamariepotter's colorway for the cover of Eclipse. This got my mojo rising and I cast on. This isn't to say that I won't be ordering more yarn from christinamariepotter (on Ravelry and etsy) for each of her colorways from books 2-4. Must. Have. Them.

I finished books 2 and 3 of P. C. Cast and Kristen Cast's House of Night series. I'm now reading the fourth book. They're light and cute and a quick read. But they are not Twilight.

I am so doomed.

I'll try to add photos to this post after lunch. Tom is substituting in and English class today and he's going to bring me a big Pepsi. I might want to check my weight tomorrow morning; I've been drinking more Pepsi than sugarless tea lately.

Two of my sisters, Betty and Joan, are planning to fly to Ft. Lauderdale at the end of June and we'll have a Sisters' Week in the Keys. We've long dreamed of doing this, but scraping together the money for the four (or three, as Nancy will be with friends that week) of us to fly, get a motel on the beach, and eat for a week has eluded us. With a free place to stay and our own gourmet chef (Tom), we're going to make out like bandits. (No, Google search, we sisters will not make out.)

Beach photos

Fins to the left

Really. Look at this photo I took about an hour and a half ago.

I'll wait.

*elevator music plays*

It may be hard to see; I certainly didn't notice it when I took the photo. Just under the setting sun, a tiny bit to the left, there is a fin. I had to enlarge it to make sure of it, but it is.

I'm at St. Petersburg Beach (Florida) with my daughter and her family. We're staying in a hotel on the beach, so the kids and I went out after dinner to spend a few minutes frolicking. I've never been able to take a decent sunset photo, so I tried again.

I'm pretty happy with it.

I'm pretty sure that's a dolphin out there. I didn't hear any screams or see blood spreading over the surface of the water.

Days Go By is having a contest for her 300th blog post. Go check it out, and tell her I sent you!

P.S. Scroll down; she has some pretty photos of a beach.