Another FO!

I finished those (black)hearted socks yesterday on the way home. YES!!! Goal achieved!

In the truck just after I finished them:

And on my feet today (shoe shopping in Ft. Lauderdale--a dream! Three pairs.):

And the winner is......

Me!

I haven't bought yarn since I bought some of Claudia's back in September or so. I haven't needed to buy yarn. I have plenty. I didn't plan to buy any yarn (although thoughts of nice, soft superwash for babies was becoming an obsession). But last week, the woman for whom I'm knitting the I'm Done socks told me that our favorite (and only 3 years old) LYS is going out of business.

I may have written about this before. I have no brain cells left that aren't full of song lyrics from the 60s, along with who wrote what song and what the flip side of the record was. But that's another story. I may write it someday, if I can remember it.

Okay, looks like I didn't mention that my favorite LYS is going out of business. So, now you know.

There have been 3 yarn shops in this small city for the last three years. Two opened at the same time, which was unfortunate, because the larger one already had a following from the small shop the owner had a few miles down the road. I would have thought that they could all coexist peacefully and continue into infinity; they have different types of yarn, different types of knitters, different philosophies. (philosophy? Why, yes, I use philosophy products, and if anyone out there wants to buy a gift for someone special who could really really use a neck lift and a new decollete, here's a good place to start.)

Where was I? Oh, the LYS.

ANYway, since I've been such a bad customer for the last year (I had big hopes when she opened, but a yarn diet dashed those), I felt obligated to go in and buy what I could, especially since some of the prices are really good. Most things were 25% off, but some of the yarn was 50-75% off, and I found some bargains. Including some of that superwash I've been dreaming about.

I'd seen this before online and thought it was cute, so I bought it for A so she can have the darling knitting needles and I can have the darling book of doggie patterns:



Closeup of the needles:



I'd love to have them for myself, but I have to be reasonable; I don't like to use straight needles, and these are the right size for A. I'm not dumb enough to harbor hope that they'll last forever and she can pass them down to her daughter or granddaughter, they'll probably get lost when B2 takes them to play Tower of Terror or Doggie Rides the Monorail, but they're cute and they weren't expensive.

Next, some luscious Bam Boo that's soft and coral (a favorite color of mine) and I don't know what I'll do with it, but it was half off and I had to have it.



Lily Chin superwash in a dark sapphire:



Only 3 balls, unfortunately. I was envisioning a hat, sweater, and booties for a teacher's new baby boy.

Last, more superwash, a deeper, maybe grayer blue, in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride bulky, the first of this brand I've had:



There. My conscience is appeased. And I have superwash to play with. Win-win, if you ask me.

Gambling fools

Two of my sisters and I went to Atlantic City for a weekend earlier this month. Having never gambled before, it was an exciting prospect, especially since we all three figure we have addictive personalities.

We didn't go for the gambling; Joe Walsh was the draw. Joan will drop her everyday-life in a split second if Joe glances in her general direction (such as the East Coast). The Borgata hosted Joe and his band in their 3500-seat (or standing) Event Room. Bruce Willis and his blues band opened.


We didn't stay at The Borgata; it's (I think) Atlantic City's newest casino and is very upscale (as opposed to say, Harrah's, where we stayed), and as such, the rooms were going for $450 a night on the weekends. We couldn't even swing one night there. Harrah's was about $250 a night, for heaven's sake. Who can afford these places???

Harrah's was nice enough, although the a/c in the room was either a) Arctic or b) Sahara. I guess they didn't want us to get too comfortable and stay away from the casino. Not a problem; although we weren't experienced gamblers, we were..... shall we say, interested.

When we first went into Harrah's, Betty wouldn't trust her new car to a valet, so we had to park in the parking deck and, dragging enough luggage for a month in Europe (ha--I took less to Europe than I did that weekend), had to find our own way through several miles of tunnels, skywalks, elevators, and escalators (that weren't wide enough for luggage, although we forced our way on) (why on earth would the only way into a casino/hotel be by way of a 2' wide escalator?) into the casino. Even employees there couldn't (or wouldn't) tell us how to get to the lobby.

Once we'd forced our luggage onto the escalator, which was pretty steep (but not as tall or intensely steep as the escalators at Dulles Airport), we struggled to maintain our balance as the first view of the casino came into view. Then we sort of forgot about the stupid luggage; the casino is immense, very brightly-lit, and very loud. I pretty much fell off the escalator when my luggage caught at the bottom instead of smoothly transitioning to the casino floor, almost taking Betty out, because we were gaping like a couple of rubes at the sight.

I've never seen anything like it. There are acres, probably miles of slot machines and other assorted gambling paraphernalia. There is this an all-pervasive loud hum; the combination of that, cigarette smoke, and the sound of so many voices babbling at once was almost overwhelming. (As much as I like concerts, I don't tolerate noise and crowds well. The older I get, the more overwhelming it becomes. So, at school, I avoid rallies and most assemblies; panic attacks aren't pretty.)

After two or three days we found our way to the hotel lobby and checked in.

The first thing we did was eat. Betty can't eat while traveling, and it was a week-long trip to drive the 300 or so miles to Atlantic City. (We are all map-reading-impaired.) (Even with printed instructions from MapQuest and Betty's son.) We went outside for a little while to smell the ocean, which we couldn't see, since we were on the harbor or something.


We explored the shops in the hotel and checked out the restaurants. This place is like a city. An expensive city, at that. By that time, the hum had started sounding welcoming, almost comforting, sort of like the music you hear when you enter the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It was starting to sound exciting. The noise of the crowd wasn't bothering me as much, although the cigarette smoke was still annoying.

I realized then that the sound was coming from the slot machines; it was the sound made as one punched the buttons and won--or lost. It was a chord of three notes, the final one being a perfect high C. I'm betting that phychiatrists or some else hired for that purpose determined that particular combination of notes to be soothing, envigorating, and inviting.

Being the total innocents that we were, we actually thought that slot machines took actual coins. Ha ha, we are so dumb. They only took $5, $10, $20, $50, or $100 bills, or tickets printed by their money machines that took your money. After a woman condescendingly explained that to us, we each, hesitantly, inserted $5 bills into the machines that looked like winners. (Yeah, I said we were naive.)

Huh. It wasn't difficult. It was fun. We each had preset a limit on what we were willing to lose. I took the money that Mom and Dad had given me for my birthday (and aren't they proud!) and played for 2.5 hours. Each time I won more than the $$ I started with, I cashed in the ticket, stashed the extra amount, and put the original $$ back into play. By the time I was ready to go to the room, I'd spent $20 and had about $2.50 stashed.


The next morning, or at some point during the day, we took a shuttle to the Boardwalk. After Betty and I walked out to the beach and into the cold, rough water, the three of us decided to take a buggy ride down the Boardwalk. That was fun. Our "guide" (who pushed the cart thingy) kept up a running commentary and we saw some other casinos and some really scary-looking stores. We got off at the mall on the Boardwalk and found a Chico's with a really good sale.

Happy Feet

Okay, we're somewhere on the outskirts of Bonn, our first day in Europe. Europe! No wonder I got so crabby; I was constantly pinching myself to see if it was real.

We walked across the bridge, said goodbye to our escort, and continued on our way. It was hot, and we hadn't learned yet that it was a good idea to always carry water with us. (Everything that we'd read had led us to believe that northern Europe was usually cooler than Virginia is in July, but what luck we had, it was unusually hot the entire time we were there.) I didn't think we'd ever reach the Birkenstock outlet. There weren't many businesses in that area, mostly warehouses, but after walking for several hours (20 minutes, but time is different in Germany) we saw a sign for "Birko Orthopadie". Since there was nothing else in sight that looked remotely connected with Birkenstocks, I suggested that we go inside and ask for directions. The building was nothing like I'd expect for a world-famous corporation.


Inside we found an office that was a little more promising; there were Birkenstock catologs and footbeds on the counter. A couple of people wandered by, I asked for directions, and they pointed out the outlet: Right. Across. The. Street. Ohhhhhhhhh. But they were very nice about it and even seemed a tiny bit amused impressed that we'd come so far to find it.

To be honest, we had to go through a clothing outlet store to get to the Birkenstock store. For all I know there could have been a whole outlet mall there and we just came upon it from the wrong direction, but once I got Birk in my sights, there was no diversion. We walked in and saw this














and this












and this.














(A little background: I discovered Birkenstocks about 12 years ago in Key West. I bought my first pair and was hooked. Never before had shoes felt so right, so comfortable, or so expensive. They are worth every penny they cost. Imagine walking on cushions of memory foam. Yeah, they're that comfortable.)

So anyway, I was practically hyperventilating at the sight of this huge room full of racks of Birkenstocks. Every size, shape, and color of Birks, arranged by size. When one pair was removed, a clerk appeared to replace it, so the racks were always full. It was totally overwhelming amazing.

Tom was thrilled, as you can imagine. He found a chair and got comfortable.

After longing to visit the outlet for so long, I wasn't going to rush through the experience. First I took a few photos (I tend to spend too much time looking through the lens rather than actually soaking up my surroundings), then I just walked through the room, taking in the styles and colors and trying to realize that I was actually there. Then I grabbed 8 or 10 pairs of assorted styles to try on. They had a pair of Footprints (a line of Birkenstock shoes--as opposed to sandals) that I've been dying to have, but since they're about $200 in the US I hadn't bought any, and Birk stores are few and far between in my area. They were around $80 at the outlet, so I was really excited. Tried them on, and they just didn't feel right. Huh. I tried another size and they still weren't right, so that dream died right then and there.

I didn't care; there were hundreds of other shoes to try on.

I systematically (more or less) (okay, less) went through the ones that I liked and tried them on. I'll take these, nope, let's try another style, gotta have these, etc. After some agonizing decision-making, I ended up with 10 pairs for the two of us to haul around Europe.

The prices were great. Leather sandals run about $95 here in the US; they were maybe $60 at the outlet. (Okay, I can get brand-new ones on ebay for about the same price, but I can't try them on first.) (But, for future reference, we wouldn't have to cart them around, either.) I spent a total of $325 for 10 pairs of Birks. Only two pairs were leather, but that's still an excellent price for that many pairs. Four of them were two pairs for about $30, unheard of even for fake leather, even on ebay.

Three of the ten pairs were for 3 of my grandchildren. Kids' Birks are so cute but so expensive to put on rapidly-growing feet. My youngest grandson has very wide feet and is hard to fit, so I bought him a pair of leather lace-up shoes that were too big for now, but they looked wide enough that they'll eventually fit. My two granddaughters got cute red sandals. I didn't get any for my oldest grandson; I didn't think he'd particularly like any of them.

Far too quickly (for me, anyway; Tom had fallen asleep), my quest shopping was done. I handed over my debit card, paid for the shoes, took the huge bag and we started the long trek back to the train station.

It felt like the trip back to the train station was a whole lot longer when carrying a big bag of shoes. Bless Tom, he carried them.