Kung Hei Fat Choi!

It's the Year of the Dog! So Gregor, Dave & I headed down to Chinatown this afternoon to check out the Lunar New Year celebration. The must-haves for the crowd were these long colorful paper tubes that shoot showers of colorful paper bits into the air -- think wrapping paper tubes covered in foil and packed with tissue paper shreds. You push on one end until the pressure inside the tube makes the paper explode into the sky and everyone cheers. This is great and colorful, but you can see the "river of blood" that results from such revelry on a rainy day. Gregor found out the hard way that this river is much deeper than it looks. And I found out that wet rainbow-colored paper is not so nice when it lands all over your light-colored coat...reminds me of a certain blue streamer vs. animal cracker incident in college...

I ripped out the original start to my mittens and am now following a seed-stitch cable mitten pattern supplied by my guru. See? I'm quite happy with how they're coming along so far.

Sammy in the City

Finally, Sam made her Big Apple debut. It was a little bit colder than we would have liked, but we still bundled up my cute little niece and went for a brisk walk to Washington Square Park. Almost immediately Sam's little eyes watered from the cold so we kept right on going past the arch, down McDougal to SnB's old stitching grounds, the Tea Spot. The beautiful Mudry baby got a lot of attention, of course.

After tea, where else could we take her in NYC but to a bar! Oh, don't worry, Loreley serves food, too...hearty German fare. And it's very kid-friendly, in that Sam could scream if she needed to (she didn't), and no one would be bothered over the cacophony of revelers. It was a great afternoon, and I hope she comes back soon. Really, I just wanted to use this post to show off how cute she is!

Mittens are on the needles, my first ones! But I'm taking them off because I was kind of making them up as I went along and I don' think it was going along too smoothly -- my guru is faxing me a new pattern to try for them.

Puppies and Cables and Memes...oh my!

I shouldn't be posting this, since it's a gift I won't be able to give until March, and the recipient's mom occasionally reads this blog, but I won't name names...and it came out so cute, I just had to share. I turned down the collar because it looked weird when I left it up -- too bad I didn't realize that before or I wouldn't have added the now-superfluous button holes up there. Oh well -- design feature. I especially like the puppy buttons I picked up at SnB at The Point last night.

BIG NEWS...at this very moment, SAM is on her way to NYC. YAY! Pics to come after she does many cute things and I record them on camera.

I was tagged by Crafty Girl's Life to answer this MEME (how do you say that? I really never heard of it before I started knitting and blogging, and now I've heard it a bunch of times!)

4 Jobs I've had in my life.
Assembly line picker and packer at Gibson's factory
Mascot for New Haven Ravens (Minor League baseball team)
Computer teacher at St. George's College in Kingston, JA
Jack of all trades at Rocket Books

4 Movies you watch over and over.
The Princess Bride
Cruel Intentions
A Christmas Story
Gladiator

4 TV shows you love to watch.
Survivor
Scrubs
American Idol
Everwood

4 Websites you visit daily.
CNN
Second Breakfast
All my knitting friends' blogs -- there are more than 4!

• PassionKNITly
  Sweet Girl Knits
  Crafty Girl's Life
  Katy Knits NYC
  

Yarn Harlot
Breast Cancer Site - to fund free mammograms!

4 Places you'd rather be right now.
Scuba diving in Roatan
Knitting at The Point
Hanging out with Sam (soon to be here!)
Drinking wine in front of a fireplace with my friends while a blizzard rages outside

And I'm done!

"I'm not drunk, I'm just fun!"

Unable to decide between the duck and the shrimp, my fabulous friend NYC Rachele fumbled her order, causing the waiter to tell her she was cut off from her Tom Yumtini. To which she replied with the title of this post. I love that girl! We randomly ran into her while having a glass (or two) of wine at Bar Veloce in Chelsea, an area where neither Rachele nor we live, and transitioned our chance encounter into dinner and cheap yet fancy martinis at Nooch.

Speaking of drinking, the aftermath of my 32nd birthday left me feeling a bit old, so I decided to make a list of celebrities who were born in or before 1974 and are still very very cool. I don't know why, but thinking of things like this makes me feel like so many more great things are still possible in my life, and that I'm not that old yet. So indulge me and let me know who you think should be added to this list... (all dates are from IMDB)

• Sting (1951)
• George Clooney (1961)
• Jon Stewart (1962)
• Johnny Depp (1963)
• Amy Ray (1964) & Emily Saliers (1963) (aka The Indigo Girls)
• Sarah Jessica Parker (1965) & Matthew Broderick (1962)
• Keifer Sutherland (1966)
• Gwen Stefani (1969)
• All members of BNL (Born in or before 1970)
• Matt Damon (1970)
• Tina Fey (1970)
• Queen Latifah (1970)
• Vince Vaughn (1970)
• Cameron Diaz (1972)
• Shaquille O'Neal (1972)
• Ryan Seacrest (1974)
• Ryan Phillippe (1974)
• Joaquin Phoenix (1974)

Lastly, I highly recommend the BODIES exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum. Ever wonder what your spleen looks like? Your veins? Your entire digestive system? Go here! The exhibition is comprised of actual human bodies/body parts that have had all the fluid removed from the cells and replaced by some plasticizing material. It's truly amazing, but go with a strong stomach -- I had had enough by the last room. You may never get a chance to see the human body like this again, with its insides displayed splendidly and honestly. You'll also see that we're no less hunks of meat on the inside than a cow or a pig...edifying for a vegetarian!

It finally happened!

Dave has finally embraced my obsession with knitting & with bags, providing a birthday present that allows me to combine the two! He even went through the trouble of ordering the bag on-line, not just picking it up on a whim. I love it! He went one step further into Michelle-specific gifts and got me a copy of Vegetarian Times. See what 4 years of marriage can do? He finally gets me!

Here's what's on my needles -- it's a sweater for one of my friend's bun-in-the-oven. It's the Elizabeth Zimmermann Best Baby Sweater pattern, but I bastardized it into a stockinette stitched/seed stitched edging/cabled sweater. Even though this is pretty simple, I'm learning a lot on it, especially how to undo mistakes without ripping out the whole thing, or tinking back slowly, stitch by stitch. I already finished the sleeves. Sorry for the dark picture, but I think you can see the cables better than with the flash on.

Happy Birthday to Me!

This past Sunday was my 32nd birthday, and Dave, Gregor, Katie & I went up to Lake Placid for the long weekend to celebrate and get away. The highlight, besides copious amounts of time spent knitting by the fireplace in the lodge with Katie, had to be the bobsled ride. With a professional driver and brakeman riding along, we went on 1/2 mile track used in the 1980 Olympics. It was so fast! And we even got to wear helmets. But it was butt-cold.

We also rode an open chair lift on that same freezing day to the top of a ski jump. We could see the home of John Brown, the abolitionist who led the raid on Harper's Ferry, and the subject of the historical fiction Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks (one of my favorite authors). It seemed weird to be looking at his homestead from an Olympic Ski Jump Observatory, like totally different worlds colliding. But looking down at the shack and graves from the height of the jump, I could really feel the setting of the book.

All in all, I had a great weekend with my husband and friends. And the hat I made for Katie for her Christmas gift got a great compliment from a lady in a shop selling Icelandic Sweaters, so that made my day!

I asked my mom to take a picture of her and my dad wearing their Christmas scarves, but I think this model is much more appropriate for the blog...

By the way, all is well in the world -- American Idol is back!

Pierogies!

We had a perfectly low-key weekend, with the highlight being today -- Dave & I spent several hours making pierogies. It was our first try, and some of them ended up not being sealed too well and so all the stuffing fell out when we boiled them. But some of them came out pretty nice. It was fun -- Dave ate about 1/2 the stuffing and put the other half in the pierogies.

Sorry for the unexciting post -- I'm still working on my Christmas presents, so I'll post more pics when they're all done and in the hands of their recipients.

Sam is coming to town on Tuesday!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Notre Dame just got trounced by Ohio State for their 8th consecutive bowl game loss...not a record we're pleased with in this house. But maybe next year will bring more joy, and since we should be able to see all the home games, I really really hope that it will be the year ND finally shakes down the thunder. Not like tonight. But, let's talk about all the good things that happened in the last 10 days...

Christmas was a time for a lot of family fun. We spent a few days in CT with my family, including Sam (seen here being proudly displayed by my mom) and my grandparents. My parents both liked the alpaca scarves I knit for them from the yarn they picked out at Southwind Farms, but I forgot to take a pic of them modeling their gifts (Mom, can you send one?).

After Christmas we headed to MI for the rest of the week. I found out my mother-in-law is a big fan of untangling yarn, so I let her handle all of the knitpicks Sierra that I was working with, since I couldn't figure out how to wind it without creating a mess...thanks Mom L! I made her a little knitting kit, so we'll see how far she progresses before I see her next. Here's a pic of the scarf I am working on with this yarn (it's an Irish Hiking Scarf from Hello Yarn) -- it's a Christmas present, a little late but oh well. We hung out with our adorable nephew Alek & niece Annika -- here's a pic of Alek wearing a Chinese hat that Dave bought in Hong Kong.

I had some great wool that I bought from the Craftacular and I made the Coronet cable-trimmed hat from knitty as a present for my friend Bevo. This was a particularly rewarding project for me, because it forced me to do a few new things, including a provisional cast-on (thanks knittinghelp.com) and the kitchener stitch (not so hard as I thought -- it didn't come out perfect but that's because I was grafting together the cabled band and I'm not that advanced -- I decided that if i had to wait for perfection I'd never get anything done at this stage). I also had to undo and re-do the hat when it was initially too small for its recipient. I really like how it turned out.
Anyway, I'll end here, and I wish you all a Happy New Year! I hope 2006 lives up to everyone's hopes and that your resolutions/promises/life changes/happiness are all met.

Christmas time!

Here's a nice shot of Grand Central from my walk last night -- it was a bit cold, but due to the strike there really wasn't an option besides paying for an over-priced cab. The gridlock looked pretty bad, so I felt a little glad I was on foot instead of stuck in traffic.

Becca, Ryan and Eoin came into Manhattan today and walked all the way to my place from Grand Central to see me. Well, I think Eoin more rode than walked...but what a cute kid!

I finally finished Dave's hat! I made and re-made this thing about 10 times. It's alpaca (what else?) and matches the scarf I made him in May. It's the right size and he likes it, oh praise be to the Lord! I'll get a pic up later, when he models it. And I promise some pics of the Christmas presents I made/am making, once they get given.

I was getting together the yarn I would "need" for our trip to CT and MI for the holidays, when Kingston decided to take a nap on it. He's not ferocious at all, this is mid-yawn -- I thought it was a cute lucky shot. I'm so glad we're driving and not flying out to MI -- last year was a nightmare, and I would seriously have to cut down on the amount of yarn I'm bringing with me, which means making decisions and I just don't feel like doing any more of that today.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Happy/Merry Everything to Everyone!

Washington Square Park looked lovely as I walked home from SnB last night, so I took a few pictures to share. They came out a bit blurry b/c it was night, but you get the idea.






And look! Claudine made an awesome seat cover for her step-dad -- she really is a yarn superstar! I actually felt kind of knit-smart last night, as some people asked for help and I was able to give it. And for my next project I'll be doing a provisional cast-on, and I'm not scared!

STRIKE!

I really never thought they'd do it, but the TWU announced a transit strike around 3am this morning. At least it's not raining or snowing, but I feel badly for all the now-pedestrian commuters because it is COLD outside! Especially for those walking across the bridges...check out the photos on the BBC, where I got these pics. Those people on the right look like they are hugging each other through a tragedy (come on, it's not that bad), and I hope that guy on the tracks doesn't jump, but at least there's nothing to come along and squash him if he does.

Sitting on my butt in the warmth of my home office, the strike hasn't personally affected me yet, but Dave had to walk to work this morning and will walk home, too, unless something changes soon. I don't know if I fully support the striking transit workers, but I'm certainly not 100% against them. The MTA made a stupid move by announcing a huge budget surplus and giving refunds to riders just before the workers contracts were up. I can't see why they would do that -- have 2 fare raises, shout out about all this extra money, and then try to cut benefits to workers. It seems like the MTA is trying to alienate its riders and employees. However, I also know how much this is hurting the city and its residents, especially those less fortunate who can't afford to miss work and can't afford a $10 or more cab ride each way. I think binding mediation may have been a better solution than a strike, but both sides have to agree to that. And by the way, Bloomburg is PISSED!

On the people front, it seems like NY-ers are really pulling it together. The streets down here are not crowded at all, and cars seem to be full of riders instead of the usual 1 person per car that seems to be in the norm in NYC. I know a lot of people are car-pooling and picking up strangers. This is the third time since we've lived here that we've seen the subway system shut down, and I've always been impressed by how much people here help and reach out to each other in these times. I just wish it would happen more often when we aren't faced with hard times.

Happy Birthday Dave & Mikey!

This past Friday was Dave's 32nd birthday, and we celebrated by going to see Wicked earlier in the week, a truly great musical. Dave is now addicted to the soundtrack, only he's modified it with his own words and goes around singing about how he is "So Popular" and has a "Wicked Wife"...on his actual birthday, we went to dinner at I Coppi (GREAT chickpea soup, I have to get the recipe) and to see Brokeback Mountain -- good film. I love Annie Proulx's writing, and the movie really felt like a world she had created. Plus, I don't think it is possible to go wrong with a movie starring both Heath and Jake (nice step up from Day after Tomorrow)...all they have to do is stand there and look pretty.

On Friday, we followed up Dave's little celebration with a semi-surprise birthday party for my little bro, Michael, who turned 30 (yikes! That really means I'm old...) Kerry took Mikey out to dinner, and in the meanwhile a bunch of friends and family came over to their house. Mikey says he knew about it, and he kept asking Kerry, "Are you sure you're not having a party for me? Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing my family again next weekend for Christmas. And don't worry, that's non-alcoholic champagne that Sam is trying to grab from my mom...

I spent yesterday baking my brains out (NO, not what you're thinking). I made a whole bunch of cookies for Christmas, and just have a few more to make tonight. I finished a few Christmas presents, too, but can't post their pics until I give them as gifts. And, I got some mighty nice hand-spun wool from make workshop at the Bust Magazine Holiday Craftacular, where I also got to meet Debbie Stoller, Stitch 'n' Bitch author, and thank her for starting the SnB group, because I have made so many friends there and met so many great people (yes, Claudine, this includes you, my Central Park Knitting sub-group member!)

Signs of Christmas

Everyone should get one of these -- a watch cat! Don't even think about opening these gifts before Christmas...

Do you know who this is?

Here's a clue -- her dad built this bagpiping snowman..

Holiday Party

Saturday night we hosted a holiday festival, which turned out to be big fun (like we expected anything less???) A lot of people I hadn't seen in a while came, and even though there was a high turnout, the apartment didn't seem overly crowded. We actually had a sort of psuedo-hall party, as our friend and neighbor Cathryn across the way was also having a bash that night, so her place absorbed a lot of the overflow (and dished out some great food and beverage, too) I didn't take many pics, but here's one of me with my friends Yumi and Jill, and another of Claudine and Jill (different Jill!) Even my parents and our friends from home, Tom & Dianne, came to celebrate, and despite their intentions to leave on an early train after shopping all day, 3 bottles of wine and some hot spiced cider easily convinced them to stay past their bedtimes. I heard they all woke up in time to head to Foxwoods at 8am the next day -- gives me hope that the best years in life are still to come, if they can party like that and rally for more in the morning... (and by the way, three of the hotties in these pics -- Jill, Jill and Claudine -- are single if you're interested...)

In knitting news, I'm working on some Alpaca Christmas presents. I am so far behind. And I keep on getting shipments from Knitpicks of stuff I ordered a while ago when I was feeling more optimistic and ambitious about things and I can't remember what this stuff is all for! And there's still more that hasn't shipped yet! Hopefully I will get to complete the gifts before too much of the new year has passed...I really need to learn how to knit faster.

Last but not least, here's a pic of my guru's special friend, modelling an intricately designed hat she made and gave him for Christmas. What a lucky guy!

Snow Day!

A view from our window this morning. Snow in NYC! Yay!

"Why Lennon?"

I remember seeing this graffiti inscribed in one spot on the floodwall of the Naugatuck Riverbank in Ansonia when I was younger. Though I was too young to understand what the words really meant and how they affected so many people, I remember asking my mom about it. She told me that someone had killed one of the Beatles and that the author of the graffiti didn't know why. It's simple enough for a 6-year-old to grasp but so true.

I think today, 25 years after Lennon's murder, I just wanted to mention what a tremendous impact on music the Beatles had, and in turn, what a snowballing effect their music had on the world. Listening to their songs calls up strong emotions, and I can't imagine how many people have acted "under the influence" of "Here Comes the Sun," "Hey Jude," or even..."Why Don't We Do It in the Road"...!!!

In college, I randomly won a collection of all the Beatles CD's in a bookstore raffle I didn't even remember entering. And Red & I used to have a really cool Beatles poster on our wall in college, all psychedelic-like with big flowers and the band in pink ruffly suits. I wonder where that is, now? No matter, Dave would probably only let me put it up in the closet with my Sting posters...

Anyway, here's to remembering a great man, a great band and some great tunes.

Snowy alpacas!

After 2 weeks in Asia, we went straight to CT upon landing at LGA, to pick up Mango and Kingston and to see Sam. Oh, and my parents and brother and sis-in-law, too. Sam is adorable, but I was too tired to even take pictures, so you're just going to have to trust me when I say she gets cuter every time we see her. Jet lag hit me hard last night -- I fell asleep on Mike & Kerry's couch, then on my parents' couch, then again for about 9 hours in bed.

One strange thing is that is it COLD here -- what the heck? It was so warm in HKG, and we didn't even have jackets with us. And when we woke up this morning it was SNOWING and the roads were icy! But when mom showed me an ad in her local paper that said, "Meet the Alpacas"...you can imagine that I couldn't say no, icy roads or not. I roped both parents and Dave into joining me in a visit to Southwind Farms in Watertown. I was talking to farm-owner Penny about her yarn while her husband Jim led my family out to see the alpacas. Soon I followed their snowy footsteps, in through the gate to the barn, and was shocked and delighted to find that my family was surrounded by snow-dusted alpacas, petting them and everything! All the other farms I'd been to had kept the alpacas separated from their human visitors by fences, but these animals were so friendly and so so so soft to touch. There were many babies, too. Jim was great at telling us all about the animals -- we found out that the average cost of buying one is $50K, and that recently someone (not Jim & Penny) sold an alpaca for $610K! But you can get a much cheaper animal if it has a genetic defect that is not considered desirable by breeders -- in case you want an alpaca just for a pet. What a good idea! Dave's absolutely agreeable...some day we'll be back to buy a blue-eyed beauty or two, and we'll love them and all their "defects".

Anyway, of course I bought some yarn -- my mom & dad picked some out for their Christmas presents, and I got some for myself (how could I not?) And I got to touch a baby alpaca! By the way, it turns out that "baby alpaca" yarn is not necessarily from the first shearing of an alpaca -- it just means that the micron content in the fleece is less than 20, and some adults have that, too. The lower the micron in the fleece, the softer it is.

We're back home in NYC now, and Mango and Kingston are happy to be back too. I'm looking forward to going to SnB on Tuesday, and to seeing some other friends this week as well.

Yarn shop Hong Kong...

If you type this into Google you'll find a lot of hits...so between meetings today, I took the MTR to Causeway Bay to check out 2 of them. I found immense amounts of yarn, and some really really cheap stuff. But everything was packed into big clear bags, so the only way to touch it was to open the bags. I guess you have to know what you want and just go and look at the colors, because it's not really easy to browse there. I may check out one more shop near my hotel tomorrow, if I have time. I bought some Spanish mohair/wool/acrylic blend that felt kind of soft and looked nice when knit up -- I think it wants to be a scarf. I also bought 2 addi turbos -- I didn't even know what size they were (turns out 8 and 11) when I bought them, but they were so dang cheap I had to -- so I just picked 2 and went with it. Only $6 or $7 each, and they would have been much more in the states. I'm sure I'll find a use for them!

While I was working, Dave has been exploring HKG. Here's a pic of the big bronze Buddha on Lantau Island, where he went today. He also went to Ocean Park to see the 2 pandas there. I'm not a big fan of zoos, so I wasn't too disappointed to miss this. But don't worry, I did manage to have some fun too...for instance I went for a hot stone massage yesterday and tomorrow we will get foot massages before dinner with my friend. I promise I'm doing some work, though!