These Trips Wear Me Out

Wow. Hubster just woke me up and said, "I think we overslept". I looked at the clock and saw it was 6:00 p.m. Where did today go? For that matter, where did yesterday go?

The entire weekend has gone to sleepy land. Yesterday (and now today) have been spent either dozing or outright sleeping. Both of us. I think we're getting old or something. My intent was to get up at a decent time today, wash and block the kids' ponchos (yes, I finally finished the damn things), take pictures of the yarny goodness which showed up at the house, and get this post done much earlier than 6:00 p.m. Now it's dark, I can't take decent pictures, and the ponchos are going to have to be on the blocking boards overnight with a fan blowing on them (they're awfully heavy). I guess I'll take pictures of the yarny goodness tomorrow night and just blab on my post today. As for the yarn review page, I'll try and get some yarn on there tonight, but if not, tomorrow will be computer day. I fell asleep in my chair (not the Monster - the hard dining room chair in front of the computer), so my ass is asleep. The last place I want to be right now is here. But here I sit, talking to all of you.

Friday turned out to be a lovely day. We checked out of heaven and walked about four blocks to Artfibers, a store I've heard a lot about but have never seen. It's on the second floor of a nondescript building - a place you would never expect to find a yarn shop. But this is the City, where even houses are row houses, hotels are tucked in-between office buildings, and the only place to go is up, so it actually made sense. But I wasn't prepared for what I walked into.

It's not that they didn't have yarn - they did. A fair amount of it. But that's about all they had, and all the yarn was on cones. If you wanted a smaller amount, it had to be wound off the cone onto a foam core to make a ball. There were a large selection of fiber blends, all of them hand-dyed, but 99% of the yarns that weren't novelty didn't have any varigation. Some of them were monochromatic with slight coloration changes; however, those aren't really the types of yarn I like. I bought a merino/alpaca blend in a pretty peach color (and just enough to make a pair of socks - their yarn suitable for sock knitting was woefully small) just to be polite. I have this thing where I feel like I'm being rude if I don't buy a little something, especially if the salesperson spends some time with me. That done, I tromped down the stairs to where Hubster was waiting on the curb.

After that, we went to the Crocker Galleria to eat lunch. Hubster had found a food court with a Japanese place so I could get Chicken Teriyaki. He wanted pizza, so we each got our respective meals and sat down to eat. I took a bite of my steaming hot plate and...

GACK GACK GACK GACK

It was the WORST teriyaki I've ever had. Bland, tough, and beyond help, it went into the garbage. His pizza wasn't much better, so we set off for the hotel and hoped to find a deli or something on the way. We found several and chose one that looked good. It was. I had a meatloaf sammie on sourdough and Hubster had salami on rye. We sat at the window counter and watched people on the street while we ate. Then it was back to the hotel to get our luggage and car, and we left the City to come back to the shithole.

When we got here, I had a bad feeling about my car. Since I rarely drive it, my batteries tend to die. I peeled off the cover, sat down behind the steering wheel (at least it moved - it's one of those that move in or out and up or down so you can actually sit in the car without being squished), and turned the key.

Click.

Yep. Dead battery. So now I get to take this one back (at least it's under warranty) and get another one. I guess I need to drive it more. I'm terrified that I'll either get in an accident, get a door ding, have the windshield busted by a rock flying off a gravel truck, or any number of things that happen while driving. My plan is to keep it pristine until we decide it's time to move and then sell it. It's gone up close to $10K from the original purchase price, and I expect it will continue to appreciate as more and more collectors seek them out. Good for us - as long as it's pristine.

So during my uptimes this weekend, I've been trying to cope with e-mail and other chores. I had close to 100 e-mails to answer and over 100 blogs to read. That took some time. I still haven't answered everyone I need to or written all the letters that need to be written. I need to work on the shop. I need to... I need to... the list goes on and on. It's overwhelming. So I'm taking it a little at a time, interspersing knitting as I can. I just picked up the gusset stitches on a swap sock (the one you saw a picture of when it was just a few rows), so I should be able to pick up the stitches on the other side and get rolling on it later on tonight. The ponchos take priority. I have a doctor appointment in Sacramento on Tuesday, so we're stopping at mom's house on the way home to drop them off and bring home the new kitty (who is still nameless). I guess it'll be time to put up my knitting so the little fart doesn't nab it. Sigh.

I also want to give a huge thank you to everyone who wished me a Happy Anniversary. It truly was a memorable one.

I've got the throbbing, newly pierced ear (right through the thickest part of the cartilage with a ring going from just inside the edge all the way around the outer part - it's called a conch) as a constant reminder.