What happens in Vegas...

Dave & I spent a long weekend in Vegas, there to celebrate the wedding of our friends Cherisse and Steve. We were also lucky enough to get to see our long time friends Adam & Jason. Adam is a Flair Devil -- meaning he's one of those bar tenders who mix drinks and pour beers by throwing them in the air and (usually) catching them again (think Tom Cruise in Cocktail). His brother Jason is an all-around cool guy who makes me laugh and can tell the best stories. My family and their family used to meet up in Cape Hatteras every summer for some of the best times of our young lives. My parents still go there every year. As you can see, Dave & Jay got on very well, too...

While in Vegas, the ladies of the wedding and the bride went see the Thunder from Down Under male revue. It was enjoyable, but these guys trafficked way too much in fantasy costumes and not enough in parading around in their skivvies. Who wants to see a pirate and a guy in a track suit doing a cheesey choreographed routine??? Not me, I'll go to Disney for that! But I have to admit that I was most entertained when the guys pulled a white-haired granny with a full fledged fanny pack up on stage to give her a thrilling lap dance.

After the wedding dinner we ran into a host of celebrities on the red carpet for the grand opening of Tao in the Venetian. Dave always claimed that Paris Hilton was such a lame celeb that he wouldn't even look if he saw her walking down the street, but my husband, a devoted reader of Star magazine, nearly jumped through the strategically occlusive palm trees to get a glimpse of her, along with Shannon Elizabeth (naughty Nadia). Even the Blue Man Group was there.

Last night I finished up yet another baby sweater, made with #5's and 3 skeins of Debbie Bliss Casmerino. I think it looks kind of barrel-like, and I also think I should start making these smaller, because they always end up bigger than I expect. But I like the slipped-Purlwise stitches -- they're fast and pretty. I don't know who this is for yet -- any ideas? I can't even tell what size baby it would fit.

Oh no!

We had a mild weekend punctuated by the disappointment of ND losing to Michigan State in overtime...sigh... such a let-down after the high of last week's victory. At least the fact that we're no long undefeated will make Dave less distracted at the wedding in Vegas this weekend if the game isn't over by the time the ceremony starts. I mean, 2 years ago he was checking his cell phone for the game score during the wedding. OK, I wanted to know the score, too, but still...

In knitting news, I almost finished another baby sweater but then when I got to the armholes I created some sort of weird situation with the yarn going from one stitch to another one about 10 stitches away from it...I thought I could solve it by cutting the yarn and then weaving in the ends later, but then I found another instance of this strange phenomena and I didn't have the patience to wait until SnB on Tuesday to ask someone for help so I just disassembled...No disassemble No. 5!...but I did it anyway. And here is the state of it now, after I restarted it. I'm about ready to divide for sleeves. I had a little problem with that the last time I did it, with casting on 4 additional stitches for the sleeves to pick up later...let's hope it doesn't happen again. And let me tell you, an entire Saturday of watching college football is a great way to knit and be with Dave too. Just watch out if he's eating wings and cheering, because the sauce can go flying...

This was one of the most low key weekends I've had in a loooong time. One of the laid back highlights was sitting on the deck at South Street Seaport Friday night with Katie and Dave, just looking at the river and Brooklyn and watching the boats go by. It was such a nice night!

Go Irish!

Dave and I headed out to Michigan last week to visit his family in Caro and to go to the ND v U of M football game in Ann Arbor. Final score: IRISH 17 WOLVERINES 10! The last time the Irish beat the Wolverines in the Big House, I was in college! It was good fun watching the mostly U of M fans around me grow steadily grumpy throughout the game, as the stadium got more and more quiet. Coming into the contest, ND was ranked 20th and Michigan 3rd. Not anymore! Now we are at 10 and Michigan is 14th. It's an understatement to say that football was a big thing at ND. The campus was literally empty every football Saturday during the game. People from all over the world came to watch our team play in front of "Touchdown Jesus" in the House that Rockne built. The best game I saw was the 1993 ND v FSU game, where we were playing for 1st place. The entire week before the game the campus was swamped with football enthusiasts. The parties were legendary and the tailgaters immense and varied. And we won! We won't mention that the following week, BC kicked a field goal right through our hearts and our National title dreams, but that one weekend was my favorite football game ever. I can only hope that we don't have a big letdown this weekend again Michigan State. I'll be watching!

Enough about that. While out in MI, I also visited my friends Beniva and Devon, and then spent some time with Dave's family. Dave's brother has 2 kids, 3-month old Nebechednezzer and 2-1/2 year old Annika. Annika is definitely in the "terrible two's," but she's so cute it's really hard to mind. Especially since I was only there for the weekend. That's the beauty of nieces and nephews!

Speaking of beautiful nieces, we went to CT on Monday to see Sam, my brother's daughter. I love her! There was a little misunderstanding when we asked Dave to give her her bottle, but we straightened it out on time.

Hyde Park and Woodstock

On Saturday we decided to take a break from the city and drive up to the Hudson Valley to Hyde Park, home of FDR. Even though it cost $45 to fill up the car with gas, and we didn't really even see the river until we were on our way back, it was a nice trip to the country and the FDR estate was impressive, especially the library. Maybe a little bit too impressive, since Dave and Gregor still weren't finished looking at all the exhibits when I begged them to leave 3-1/2 hours after we'd arrived. I did learn some interesting trivia, such as the fact that Eleanore Roosevelt was 5'11" and liked to knit -- there was a showcase full of her knitting needles and crochet hooks, and many many pictures of her "in the act." There was also a WWII display on the property, in honor of the new exhibit in the museum. There were re-enacters dressed in period clothes, lots of old army jeeps and guns, and even parachuters from West Point.

After leaving Hyde Park, we drove across the river to Woodstock. The late 60's love fest of the same name wasn't actually held here, it was in another New York town called Bethel, about an hour away. But, the spirit of the 60's is certainly alive in Woodstock, hand in hand with captialism. You can buy any kind of tie-dyed pleasure, wind chime, pottery or handicraft you desire...and really good ice cream. PLUS -- yarn! I walked into Woodstock Wool Company, the largest yarn store I've ever visited in my life. I wish I didn't have 2 men waiting outside for me, because I would have settled down into the roomy couches of WWC and knit away for a long time. As I left the store and found Gregor and Dave, they were so cute telling me that the parking spot they found was right in front of another yarn store that was going out of business -- and everything was 25% off! The proprietor of Rock City Yarn was so nice, I was sad that she was closing. But I did buy some Reynold's Frisky yarn and Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool.

We headed back to the city along a scenic river route, in time to catch the 2nd half of the ND v. Pitt game. Go Irish! We beat the Panthers 42-21 and are now ranked 20th in the AP poll. Dave & I are heading out to MI for the game against the Wolverines this weekend. Oh, and to see our cute niece and nephew, Annika and Nebechednezzer.

Please don't forget about the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I urge anyone who can to give to the Red Cross, or any organization that can help.

Sad

I have to talk about how depressed and sad I am about what is happening in the world right now. Katrina's aftermath is eclipsing the stampede in Baghdad, where 1,000 people died, but both events are really sad and just make me think the world is pretty sucky lately. And people are SHOOTING at the helicopters trying to evacuate patients in a New Orleans hospital -- WTF?!?!?!?! I don't even care about the looting, I mean, those people lost EVERYTHING and I can't even imagine the desperation, especially when I'm betting most of them have no insurance because a lot of poor neighborhoods were devastated. And now their shelter, where everyone was supposed to be safe, is in danger. No water, no food, no bathrooms...again, I can't even fathom. If anyone can, please donate to the Red Cross. Another good organization to donate to is Doctors without Borders, who help people all over the world, because besides what is going on in our own backyard, there is a lot of shitty stuff happening in other countries that we don't even know about and I don't know how else to help.