Sisters' Weekend

I don't want Pocket Edward to see the blasphemous things written about him on FaceBook.

Socks that I've knit for Joan, me, and Betty.

Hello from Big Pine Key!

As everyone but me already knew, I couldn't connect the stupid phone to the laptop. After another couple of hours on the phone with AT&T tech support, I said the hell with it and had the tethering removed. $30 less that way. I'm using the Crack to email and post on Facebook, but I can't blog from it. We're sitting in a Winn Dixie parking lot which is flooded; we just had a downpour, and it's already wet here. There must be at least 6-8" of water on the lot.

We're having a wonderful time here in the Keys. The condo is very nice; after paying only $136 to a plumber, both toilets are now working properly. Zippy is a very good little boy; he's not this well-behaved at home. If we can't take him with us, he stays in the condo in his crate. He's been very quiet, except when the plumber came in.

We've talked to a real estate agent on Big Pine Key and have been riding around looking at places for sale. There are a good number in our price range. In a few days or so we'll contact the agent and set up appointments to tour some houses.

Key deer, oddly enough, are everywhere on Big Pine Key. Yesterday we saw a tiny (adult) male with an impressive set of antlers. I got out of the car to photograph him, and he ran (or rather, quickly limped; he was hit by a car and one back leg doesn't work; they call him Tripod.) to me and licked my fingers. I think he might have gotten in the car, if I'd invited him in.

We've seen a couple of this season's fawns. They're about Zippy's size! The adults are smaller than our yearling deer at home. They all seem to be pretty tame; the Key is a sanctuary for them. They are an endangered species. I tell you, it feels like home!

I'll post some photos later. Just wanted to say hi for now. I'm reading a lot (we got a library card at the Marathon library) and knitting very little. Maybe later.

And my sisters will be here in just two more days for our Sisters' Week in Paradise!

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.)

A weekend in (almost) paradise

On the drive to Richmond Friday afternoon, we lucked out. The clouds parted and the sun came out. And the hotel had a pool, which was closed since it's after Labor Day, but that apparently meant they no longer skim off the bugs, so we sat on the edge and dangled our legs when we got too warm, lounged on the chaises, drank (Starbucks or water, as the case may be), read, and talked. Saturday was wonderful. Hot, in the 90s, which felt so good after the cool, dreary week we'd been through.

Our room was beautiful. It actually had a partition dividing the bedroom from the living room, and in the middle, on a swivel, was a 42" high-def tv. Now, we'd never seen HDTV before, as one of us didn't want to pay the extra $5 a month for it although she HAS an HDTV and the other two of us don't have them at all, and it was a revelation.

We all hate sports. We are blessed with a dad who never followed anything that involved throwing, catching, or hitting balls, so we grew up in a sports-free house. I'm fortunate enough to be married to a man who doesn't like sports.

But this past weekend, we only watched high-def channels. Outside of HBO, The Weather Channel, CNN, and something called Universal TV (I think), there wasn't much on that was high-def. So we watched a lot of CNN and, God help us, sports.

That doesn't mean I'll ever watch them again. But we could see every blade of grass. The colors were incredibly bright. Wrinkles on faces were unfortunately very visible. We decided that we'll never allow our photos to be shown on an HDTV, even though this weekend there was a hookup for a laptop (which I no longer have anymore) (but Joan does) and we could have looked at our pictures of Peter Cooper in high-def.

But that would have been just plain mean. And painful.

Quick note

Summer's here! The sun is shining, it's warm, and I'm happy.

I've been moving beads up the yarn for hours at a time, trying to get to the point that I can finish the test knit. It's boring.

We did buy a new modem, and after quite a bit of frustration, cursing, and in spite of another visit with customer "service", the new wireless modem installed itself and is working. I haven't even attempted to try to use the laptop with it. I'm afraid the air will turn blue.

So. That's where we stand now. I'm on vacation and loving it. I will work at school for a couple of hours tomorrow, but that's it for now.

I will eventually post photos from the Last Train Home (click on their name in the sidebar) shows last weekend, and I have some other things I want to blog about, but they'll have to wait till probably next week. My sisters and I are heading to the NC mountains for a nice, long weekend with our cousins.

Oh, and I think Claudia fired 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.

Sisters' Weekend!

Marie, Betty, Joan

Sometimes you just have to get away. This past weekend was one of those times.

My sisters and I try to get together away from home several times a year. It started out as once a year, then twice, then whenever we go to a concert, now we just go when we need to.

After debating the merits of different locations (Natural Bridge is a favorite; it's beautiful, peaceful, and there's nothing to do but enjoy the scenery), we ended up on a mountain top in a motel ("hotel" is really pushing the definition) in a room that was barely adequate, but clean enough and the place has a nice pool and a mostly-decent restaurant.

After thinking about it, we asked to be moved to another room because there was a group of big bushes across the sidewalk from our room, which was on the ground floor next to the pool. Evidentally "poolside" is ground floor and "pool view" is upper floor. There were only a few rooms available "poolside" (many were either empty of furniture or piled high with stuff from other rooms), but we were able to move to one a few doors down.

Joan came in about that time (Betty and I had gotten there a couple of hours earlier; Nancy had work to do and didn't come with us), so we went to dinner. The dining room has a wonderful view from two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the valley to the east. An incredible lightening storm with purple clouds came tearing through, and it was exhilarating to watch. Then the sunset was reflected from the clouds. We also saw a bobcat walking through the back yard of the property; he stopped and posed for a while and Joan took photos.

We didn't go back to the room till about 9:30, and we went to bed soon afterwards. By that time Betty and I were having respiratory difficulties; we both have allergies and I've been getting over bronchitis (after being put on prednisone for a few days, I was just starting to feel better and able to breathe more easily), but there was so much mold, mildew, dust, and bugs in that room that we choked up. But since it was late (by that time, it was about 10:30) and dark, we decided not to request yet another room change that night.

Filthy bathroom floor, room 2

Mold and filth in the bathroom

Stuff in the a/c unit of room 2

Mess under the headboard (the lamps weren't plugged in because the headboard was in the way)


The next morning we were pretty miserable, so when we went to the restaurant for breakfast, I requested another room change, this time on an upper floor. We moved again, this time into a much nicer (relatively speaking), cleaner room that didn't smell bad. What a pain that was, moving twice after settling in.

We spent the afternoon by the pool; the water was chilly, but Betty and Joan got in while I watched. I don't do cold water.

We had a wonderful time.