New York Trip

We got back from the conference to bunch of indifferent animals. "Auntie" Carol had them so spoiled that none of them noticed or cared that we were gone for a week. The conference was fun and informative, and very regimented, they had everything planned, I guess they didn't want any of the out-of-towners to feel nervous in the big city. I being the displaced native and rebel that I am, decided to do almost none of the planned things, instead choosing to take the boys to all my old haunts.

We stayed at the Gershwin Hotel on 27th and 5th, which is right around the corner from The Museum of Sex. The hotel was pretty nice for a mid priced place, the only complaint I had was the ongoing towel wars. What is so difficult about replacing the same number of towels? When we checked in, there were no towels at all just the bathmat. We asked for three sets of towels since there were three of us registered to the room. The next day, we had one bathtowel, three washcloths, no bathmat, and two handtowels, and it just went on from there. It got so we were hiding towels in the armoire, just in order to be able to take a shower. And this is all in spite of the signs everywhere in the bathroom asking us to please use the towels for more than one day to conserve water.

The hotel itself is very funky, the outside has fiberglass "flames" crawling up the front of the building. And the inside is decorated in a classic Andy Warhol style, with the crowning touch being a Campbells soup can signed by Warhol himself.

For vacation reading I took a new Sandra Cisneros _Caramelo_ which arrived on my doorstep courtesy of a Vintage contest I don't remember entering. Laura Pedersen's _Beginner's Luck_, and Irene Radford's _The Glass Dragon_ which my library had to import from Houston since there isn't a copy in all of Dallas. I'm still reading _Caramelo_, but all the others were pretty good. _Beginner's Luck_ was hilarious, it is a very cute story about a young girl who "divorces" her parents and goes to live with the town eccentrics.

I finished yet another pair of socks, in Red Heart Baby TLC in a light green color, (no picture yet), and have started a rainbow pair in a lovely hand dyed superwash wool that I got as part of theknitters.com Sock of the Month Club . I didn't like the pattern they came with, so I'm doing my standard toe up style.

Another Pair of Socks Finished

These were done in some leftover Blue Lake Emu Superwash DK that I had left from a shawl. I'm getting pretty good at the toe up sock, I finished the second one of these in two days.



It's so nice to not to have to get up in the morning and go to work, yesterday I did absolutely nothing. I cleaned up my living room craft endtable, and then knit and played Playstation 2 and watched talk shows all day.

Today, I'm actually leaving the house. It's the monthly meeting of the Dallas Hand Knitters Guild, and I really enjoyed going last month, I don't know anyone else (in RL) who knits so it's nice to get together and check out everyone's projects. I'll be bringing my Faina's Scart, which is going really, really slow since I've only been able to do a couple of rows at a time before getting bored, and another pair of toe up socks.

Current Read
Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind. The eighth in the Sword of Truth series. This one is pretty preachy, I don't remember the last ones having such a blatant message. The story is still good, but I still think the first three were the best. It seems to be a trend lately, fantasy writers can't just do one book or a trilogy, they just have to keep cranking them out ad infinitum.

Countdown to Vacation

Only 24 plus hours until vacation, woo hoo, I really need a little time away from work. I'm tired and cranky and not very much fun to be around. Today was pretty boring. We visited with the tigers, who are in training for blood draws and injection, but other than that most of the day was spent packing up lab samples.

Mystery Project

I'm doing the Swank-a-long with the KTBH group. I have absolutely no clue what it is we're making, but I'm really learning a lot so it's worth it!

Here's a picture of step 5 finished and awaiting the next set of instructions.

Another Ornament Finished

Finally had a day off today, was disappointed to find the library closed for staff training, I have a stack of books to pick up. Hopefully tomorrow.

I'm currently reading "Flight of the Unicorn" by Anthony Shepherd. This is the story of an expedition in the 1960's to save the Arabian Oryx, who were on the brink of extinction. In fact, in 1972 the last wild Oryx was killed, leaving only the animals remaining in zoos to represent the species. Fortunately thru careful management and captive breeding, Oryx were able to be reintroduced into the wild, with a current population of approximately 500.

This is an Arabian Oryx:




Put the finishing stitches into the August ornament for the stitchalong. This is Snowflakes Falling by Rosie's Garden.



Found my digital camera, it was somewhere I would never have looked, so I'm glad I decided to do a little cleaning up. Now I need to get some batteries, so I can do some pics of my knitting.

Cross Stitching

I'm doing a Christmas Ornament stitchalong with the yahoo group Chartswappers . We're stitching an ornament a month from the 2002 JCS Ornament issue.

Here's my July finish, Merry Mooseness by Something in Common


Today's Knitting!

I started Faina's Scarf by Fibertrends. I'm doing it in Cherry Le Fibre Nobili Tajmahal, which is a merino, silk, cashmere mix. Glorious. Softer than soft. The pattern comes with each row written out, I about died until I found the chart in the middle. Four hundred and something rows, no way I'd be able to keep my place in a text pattern.

I'm also doing a pair of socks in some leftover Superwash Emu, and the Great Aran Afghan from Knitter's magazine. Next up, Opal socks and one of the sweaters I have yarn and pattern for, not sure which one yet though.

At the Zoo

I don't understand my boss. Despite us being shorthanded, and having to have me come in on my day off, he still overscheduled procedures. So we all run around like crazy trying to get everything done, and never really having a minute to clean up what came before. Today's major procedure was radiographs and physical exam on our female Bald Eagle. Zoo's can only have Bald Eagles if they are unreleaseable into the wild. Our female only has one wing, not sure what happened to her, she's been at the zoo since 1982. Probably gunshot by some idiot hunter.

Gotta jump on the bandwagon and create my own little personal space where I can tell "everyone" all about what I had for breakfast, bitch about my day, and maybe show a couple of photos of my finished works.

I just finished a pair of socks made with Regia Wool 6ply in Midnight 5403

The picture sucks since I can't find my digital camera and I just stuck the sock on the scanner. This is my first pair of toe up socks, and I think I like doing them this way best. Thank you to Wendy Johnson of Wendy Knits! for the pattern, which is posted on her website.

Work Sucked!

One of the other techs is on vacation, and the third called in sick. So it was me and three veterinarians, doing the repro exam, hoof trim and general physical on the Okapi. What is an okapi? It's the other member of the giraffe family, with big ears and a stripey butt. Don't get me wrong, mostly I love my job but not when I've been the only vet tech at the zoo for the past three days, I have to do a major procedure all by my lonesome and I have to go in on my day off tomorrow because she's going to call in sick again, and we're already short-handed. I just have to console myself that vacation is next week, and I'm going home to NYC for the AZVT conference .