Gordo shocked and startled us last month by having an epileptic seizure. We took him to the vet right away and he was put on phenobarbital. He had a couple more seizures, one in the middle of the night. We raced him to the emergency vet clinic at about 0330 in the morning on Saturday and they kept him until Monday morning. Then we took him to the substitute vet (our vet was away at a conference). He's now on KBr (potassium bromide) and we're phasing out the phenobarbital. The KBr is easier on his body, particularly his liver, and doesn't make him so drowsy. He hasn't had any more seizures since.
Gordo goes over next week to have blood drawn, so we can see what the KBr level is. If it's good enough, we may be able to pack up and go to Palm Desert. We have a very good vet down there and our local vet is very confident that he can hand the case off without any great concern. Apparently, epilepsy is fairly common in dogs and controlling it is well-understood.
If the blood levels aren't good enough, we'll have to go back in another ten days and do it all again. By then he'll be off the phenobarbital completely and we'll be hoping that the KBr will do the job. That'll get us out of town around Christmas. We're already into the time of year that we have to plan our trip around the weather. We have to go over three passes to get to the Low Desert, although one of them, Banning Pass, is too low for snow but does sometime have fierce winds.
This will be Gordo's first long car trip since he came from Simi Valley. I'm hoping it isn't too stressful for him, because stress can bring on a seizure. He seems to deal very well with new experiences, though, so he may well take the whole thing in stride and have no problems.
I, on the other hand, will be panicking once we get down there, as my office is absolutely not puppy proof. I'm going to have to pick a lot of stuff up before I can let him in there. He doesn't seem inclined to take books off shelves, but the yarn is at real risk. He loves balls of yarn even better than he loves his stuffed toys. Soft, good mouth feel, the excitement of the chase--what more could a puppy want?
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
28 November 2008
10 June 2007
Baby Blanket Progress
I've finished three pattern repeats and have twelve more to go. That means I only have to knit 144 pattern squares and I'll be done. If I could remember where my camera is and find the energy to go get it, I'd put up a photo. Maybe about Tueday I'll manage this. Right now I'm yawning so hard it's interfering with my knitting.
We're in Lancaster and I'm feeling quite frazzled. It's a lot easier to pack things in a leisurely manner than it is to unpack that way.
I had some beautiful yarn waiting for me when I got here. Cashmere and silk, rayon and mohair, and merino, all in wonderful colors. And some new books, too. A few about knitting but more about military science fiction or mysteries.
It sure is sad to be here without any collies around.
We're in Lancaster and I'm feeling quite frazzled. It's a lot easier to pack things in a leisurely manner than it is to unpack that way.
I had some beautiful yarn waiting for me when I got here. Cashmere and silk, rayon and mohair, and merino, all in wonderful colors. And some new books, too. A few about knitting but more about military science fiction or mysteries.
It sure is sad to be here without any collies around.
07 June 2007
Still Here, Not There
OK, it's a long story, but we haven't gone to Lancaster yet. The big delay was that I finally got the receptacles on the circuit for my freezer changed from GFCIs to regular receptacles yesterday afternoon. The GFCI is a great invention, particularly for circuits that are around water, but it's crummy for freezers and refrigerators. If a GFCI trips and there's no one around to reset it, everything inside the freezer or fridge will spoil. In the summer heat we have here, it'll spoil quickly, so the once-a-week check our house sitter does won't be enough. I think I'd have to call in one of those companies that cleans up after undiscovered dead bodies to get the stink and mess out if it happened with the fridge.
Right now everything is in the van except the few things that can't stand the heat (it's cool today, only 87° with the dew point at 27° (relative humidity 12%). It's been about 10° warmer the last few days and will be again. Unfortunately, there's only a knot or two of wind, which doesn't help much in the garage.
The only knitting that isn't out there is my Argosy baby blanket. I've finished three pattern repeats on the decrease side, binding off six pattern squares (72 stitches). It's funny, but now it looks like a blanket, not a shawl. I don't notice any real change in row length, but I figure it'll show up after another few pattern repeats, when the rows get down below 240 stitches or so.
I've figured out three things about myself in the last few weeks. A lot of other knitters probably have the same traits, so I'm sure I'm not alone.
The first is that I hate knitting to a close deadline. I enjoyed knitting the feather and fan stole until I only had a week or two before I had to have it finished and blocked. I still enjoyed knitting it once I picked it up, but it was really hard to pick it up those last few days. I don't anticipate the same problem with the baby blanket because the deadline is in November and it's fun to knit.
The second is that I greatly prefer a project where I can see progress at a glance, particularly for a longer project. Argosy, in any of its forms, is like that. The pattern repeats are short enough and definite enough that there's instant gratification, even with sport-weight yarn. My fan and feather stole isn't. I think that's because the repeats aren't very distinctive.
And the third is that I hate to have my yarn trapped inside my circular needles. It just bugs me no end and I have to pass the ball through the needles to free the yarn.
I really don't have much to say today. I do some work around the house, knit a couple of rows, do some more, etc. Pretty much everything is packed and I'm just doing the stuff I do so that it's nicer returning. I do all the laundry and get everything folded, run a last load in the dishwasher, put out clean towels, change the bed, that sort of thing. It drives my husband crazy, watching me race around the house doing all this stuff just before we leave, so I'm getting it all done today.
Right now everything is in the van except the few things that can't stand the heat (it's cool today, only 87° with the dew point at 27° (relative humidity 12%). It's been about 10° warmer the last few days and will be again. Unfortunately, there's only a knot or two of wind, which doesn't help much in the garage.
The only knitting that isn't out there is my Argosy baby blanket. I've finished three pattern repeats on the decrease side, binding off six pattern squares (72 stitches). It's funny, but now it looks like a blanket, not a shawl. I don't notice any real change in row length, but I figure it'll show up after another few pattern repeats, when the rows get down below 240 stitches or so.
I've figured out three things about myself in the last few weeks. A lot of other knitters probably have the same traits, so I'm sure I'm not alone.
The first is that I hate knitting to a close deadline. I enjoyed knitting the feather and fan stole until I only had a week or two before I had to have it finished and blocked. I still enjoyed knitting it once I picked it up, but it was really hard to pick it up those last few days. I don't anticipate the same problem with the baby blanket because the deadline is in November and it's fun to knit.
The second is that I greatly prefer a project where I can see progress at a glance, particularly for a longer project. Argosy, in any of its forms, is like that. The pattern repeats are short enough and definite enough that there's instant gratification, even with sport-weight yarn. My fan and feather stole isn't. I think that's because the repeats aren't very distinctive.
And the third is that I hate to have my yarn trapped inside my circular needles. It just bugs me no end and I have to pass the ball through the needles to free the yarn.
I really don't have much to say today. I do some work around the house, knit a couple of rows, do some more, etc. Pretty much everything is packed and I'm just doing the stuff I do so that it's nicer returning. I do all the laundry and get everything folded, run a last load in the dishwasher, put out clean towels, change the bed, that sort of thing. It drives my husband crazy, watching me race around the house doing all this stuff just before we leave, so I'm getting it all done today.
04 June 2007
Omnes Didn't Exuent Today; Maybe Tomorrow
We didn't manage to leave here today. IA migraine sneaked up on me and the weather decided to be unreasonable. No one needs 109° weather when they're going over Banning and El Cajon passes, so we waved off and spent the day relaxing. This is one of the pitfalls of being retired. It's really easy to just let things slip a day or two when you have no real deadlines to meet.
I got off top dead center on my Argosy baby blanket and finished pattern repeat 16, the middle row. I've bound off two pattern squares and it's all downhill from here. Every time I finish a pattern repeat I'll have two fewer squares and 24 fewer stitches. Those 373-stitch rows were getting to me. Photos will follow soon, once I get to Lancaster tomorrow.
That is, if tomorrow really is cooler, albeit windy, as they're forecasting and my migraine finally goes away and nothing else happens to delay us. I'm avoiding sounding certain in hope that it works better that way.
I got off top dead center on my Argosy baby blanket and finished pattern repeat 16, the middle row. I've bound off two pattern squares and it's all downhill from here. Every time I finish a pattern repeat I'll have two fewer squares and 24 fewer stitches. Those 373-stitch rows were getting to me. Photos will follow soon, once I get to Lancaster tomorrow.
That is, if tomorrow really is cooler, albeit windy, as they're forecasting and my migraine finally goes away and nothing else happens to delay us. I'm avoiding sounding certain in hope that it works better that way.
03 June 2007
Exuent Omnes
I'm not quite sure how to describe tomorrow. It's either going to be "With a horse the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty "Hiyo, Silver, Away!" or "Three yards and a cloud of dust."
The van is three-fourths loaded, with only stuff I don't want sitting in a hot garage overnight left to go. The windows are latched, blinds and verticals are drawn, and we'll be on our way mid-morning. OK, I'm going to aim for an 0900 departure and we'll probably pull out of the driveway before 1100. OK, before noon.
I decided to take all the dog stuff (slicker brushes, dishes, treats, etc) with us in hope that we'll get a puppy this spring. I have a breeder looking for one for us and I'm optimistic. Not that that's any different from normal, as I'm always optimistic. I've lived my entire life in a cloud of optimism and it's worked out pretty well on the whole. I've enjoyed it so far, at least.
Oh, yeah, this time I'm taking the system and software CDs. I left them here last time and I sure did miss them.
I may be a little scarce for a few days, as there will be a fair amount of unpacking to do at the other end. I'll be back.
The van is three-fourths loaded, with only stuff I don't want sitting in a hot garage overnight left to go. The windows are latched, blinds and verticals are drawn, and we'll be on our way mid-morning. OK, I'm going to aim for an 0900 departure and we'll probably pull out of the driveway before 1100. OK, before noon.
I decided to take all the dog stuff (slicker brushes, dishes, treats, etc) with us in hope that we'll get a puppy this spring. I have a breeder looking for one for us and I'm optimistic. Not that that's any different from normal, as I'm always optimistic. I've lived my entire life in a cloud of optimism and it's worked out pretty well on the whole. I've enjoyed it so far, at least.
Oh, yeah, this time I'm taking the system and software CDs. I left them here last time and I sure did miss them.
I may be a little scarce for a few days, as there will be a fair amount of unpacking to do at the other end. I'll be back.
02 June 2007
Even Stockinette Stitch And Packing Up
I'm resting up after packing four boxes and one (!) under-bed storage bin full of yarn to go to Lancaster. You may remember I had two boxes, three bins, and a bunch of yarn still in the closet a couple of days ago. I thinned down what I'd already packed up and then added the last bits I couldn't live without, which was another box. Even though I have four boxes, they're a lot less densely packed than the first two were. And I can get the lid on the bin without it bowing upward.
I've got two or three 1 cu ft boxes of books, mostly sf and actual science. I might have not quite one box of knitting books, but I sent another box back earlier with my friend Pat. I'm leaving over half the books I brought down here, but I did buy a few new ones that I can't bear to leave behind.
I have food and clothing and a few personal things, like prescription medications, to pack, too, but that's a lot easier. We have a lot of duplicates at each house, so that we don't have to take everything both ways, just a few things. The clothes just go out last, on hangers, and get laid on top of the boxes in back. Food, mostly perishables, goes into ice chests or grocery bags.
So right now I'm trying something different with my Faina's Scarf. I've got the tip and half a body repeat knitted on US 4/3.5 mm needles, but I think that's a little tight for the Micro Spun (which, if you want my opinion, should be named Annoying Micro Split, but it is soft). So I'm starting another scarf, using US 5/4.0 mm needles. I think that's going to work better, but I won't know for sure until I finish the tip and start on the straight body section. It's there that I'm unhappy with the tighter-knit version because it cups. If I were using wool, I might be able to convince myself it would block out, but not with a synthetic.
So, you ask, what does this have to do with even stockinette stitch? I'm like a lot of knitters, I have a little trouble getting the purl rows and the knit rows to be the same size when I knit stockinette flat. This is more usual with yarns that aren't very stretchy, of course; stockinette in merino looks pretty good without much effort. I tried using a smaller needle for the purl rows, but then they're too tight (I probably need a needle about half a size smaller), so I mostly avoided large stretches of flat stockinette early in my knitting career.
A long time ago I had an epiphany. I was watching a friend knit on the tips of her needles, with the yarn wrapped tightly enough around her fingers to almost cut off the circulation. She produces the tightest knitting I've ever seen. She usually goes up about three or four needle sizes to get gauge.
The epiphany was that she wasn't knitting on the needles, she was knitting on the tips, and this is why her knitting was so tight. Well, that and that her stitches were so close together there wasn't any slack. My purling is too loose knitted on the needles so why not try knitting them on the tips, with the stitches close together? So I did. And it worked.
I was taught to slide my new stitch down past the tip onto the barrel of the needle and I usually do so. I still do so for the knit rows of stockinette. When I'm doing stockinette with non-stretchy yarn, though, I form the purl stitches at about 2/3rds or 3/4ths of the tapered tip and I don't slide each stitch onto the barrel of the needle, but just leave it there and knit the next one right beside it. Knitting this way makes my stockinette stitch very even because my purl rows aren't looser than my knit rows.
If any of you are plagued, as I was, by uneven stockinette, I hope this technique will help. It may take some practice at first, but give it a try and let me know.
I've got two or three 1 cu ft boxes of books, mostly sf and actual science. I might have not quite one box of knitting books, but I sent another box back earlier with my friend Pat. I'm leaving over half the books I brought down here, but I did buy a few new ones that I can't bear to leave behind.
I have food and clothing and a few personal things, like prescription medications, to pack, too, but that's a lot easier. We have a lot of duplicates at each house, so that we don't have to take everything both ways, just a few things. The clothes just go out last, on hangers, and get laid on top of the boxes in back. Food, mostly perishables, goes into ice chests or grocery bags.
So right now I'm trying something different with my Faina's Scarf. I've got the tip and half a body repeat knitted on US 4/3.5 mm needles, but I think that's a little tight for the Micro Spun (which, if you want my opinion, should be named Annoying Micro Split, but it is soft). So I'm starting another scarf, using US 5/4.0 mm needles. I think that's going to work better, but I won't know for sure until I finish the tip and start on the straight body section. It's there that I'm unhappy with the tighter-knit version because it cups. If I were using wool, I might be able to convince myself it would block out, but not with a synthetic.
So, you ask, what does this have to do with even stockinette stitch? I'm like a lot of knitters, I have a little trouble getting the purl rows and the knit rows to be the same size when I knit stockinette flat. This is more usual with yarns that aren't very stretchy, of course; stockinette in merino looks pretty good without much effort. I tried using a smaller needle for the purl rows, but then they're too tight (I probably need a needle about half a size smaller), so I mostly avoided large stretches of flat stockinette early in my knitting career.
A long time ago I had an epiphany. I was watching a friend knit on the tips of her needles, with the yarn wrapped tightly enough around her fingers to almost cut off the circulation. She produces the tightest knitting I've ever seen. She usually goes up about three or four needle sizes to get gauge.
The epiphany was that she wasn't knitting on the needles, she was knitting on the tips, and this is why her knitting was so tight. Well, that and that her stitches were so close together there wasn't any slack. My purling is too loose knitted on the needles so why not try knitting them on the tips, with the stitches close together? So I did. And it worked.
I was taught to slide my new stitch down past the tip onto the barrel of the needle and I usually do so. I still do so for the knit rows of stockinette. When I'm doing stockinette with non-stretchy yarn, though, I form the purl stitches at about 2/3rds or 3/4ths of the tapered tip and I don't slide each stitch onto the barrel of the needle, but just leave it there and knit the next one right beside it. Knitting this way makes my stockinette stitch very even because my purl rows aren't looser than my knit rows.
If any of you are plagued, as I was, by uneven stockinette, I hope this technique will help. It may take some practice at first, but give it a try and let me know.
01 June 2007
Reality Is A Stone Bitch
I've got my Argosy Baby Blanket half done and there it sits. I've been led astray by four skeins of cherry red Lion Brand Micro Spun and the pattern for Faina's Scarf. I don't have all that much done yet, so I'm not going to waste bandwidth with a photo.
The real reason I haven't gotten much knitting done is that I've been doing laundry and packing things up to go back up to Lancaster. I'm having a really hard time deciding which yarn stays and which yarn goes. I've got 3 cu ft of yarn packed into boxes, plus three big under-bed storage bins, and I haven't reached the back of the closet, where a lot of new yarn lives. I'm not going to knit it all up this summer, not with everything I have to do at my mom's house, getting it ready to go on the market, but I'm having trouble leaving the really good stuff behind.
I'm going to have to get serious and be realistic about what and how much I'm going to knit. I should be able to leave more here. It's not like I'm going to a house without yarn, after all. The yarn I have here may be a bit flashier than the yarn up there, but it's not nicer.
In case anyone was wondering, I do not have enough yarn here to fill up the entire mini-van. For some reason, that's a great comfort to me. I guess having that much yarn would just be excessive according to some judgmental bit of my mind.
The real reason I haven't gotten much knitting done is that I've been doing laundry and packing things up to go back up to Lancaster. I'm having a really hard time deciding which yarn stays and which yarn goes. I've got 3 cu ft of yarn packed into boxes, plus three big under-bed storage bins, and I haven't reached the back of the closet, where a lot of new yarn lives. I'm not going to knit it all up this summer, not with everything I have to do at my mom's house, getting it ready to go on the market, but I'm having trouble leaving the really good stuff behind.
I'm going to have to get serious and be realistic about what and how much I'm going to knit. I should be able to leave more here. It's not like I'm going to a house without yarn, after all. The yarn I have here may be a bit flashier than the yarn up there, but it's not nicer.
In case anyone was wondering, I do not have enough yarn here to fill up the entire mini-van. For some reason, that's a great comfort to me. I guess having that much yarn would just be excessive according to some judgmental bit of my mind.
28 May 2007
Blanket Progress and Lace Blocking
I just started the fourth ball of yarn on the baby blanket. I've knitting the fifteenth pattern repeat, and have over ¾ of it done. My tape measure and I think that the edges are well over 40 in. I'm pretty sure I'm going to quit increasing at the end of the sixteenth pattern repeat. I'd show you a photo, but it doesn't look that much different, even to its devoted creator's eye. Maybe later today.
As soon as the casita cools down, I'm going to go unpin the Forest Canopy Shawl that I blocked earlier. It's definitely dry. It looks pretty good; I'll take a bunch of photos. I threaded a strand of plastic-covered steel wire (bead stringing wire) through the long straight edge and pinned out the points on the other two edges. I strung the wire tightly between the two front legs of the day bed to be sure the edge was really straight. That worked very well.
The feather and fan stole doesn't look nearly as good. I didn't have enough long pins or wire to get the two edges straight, so they wobble all over the place. The scallops came out way too pointy because of the pin shortage. I'm going to re-block it by threading the wire through the edges and tying it to the day bed frame. I'll make the scallops more scallop-y and less pointy, too. I'll take some photos of it now, but I may not show those to the world. However, once I get it wired up, I'll snap a few more for show and tell.
The casita was 88° F when I turned the A/C on, so it should be pretty comfortable after lunch. Blocking is surprisingly hard work with all the back-and-forth iterations. I have to work fast because the relative humidity is 14% outside and things dry very quickly indeed. Spray bottles help a lot.
Today was probably our last day of having our groceries delivered for a while. We intend to go back up to Lancaster for the rest of the summer, only coming down here for short visits. I think we're leaving on Thursday or Friday, but that could change. I've been packing up yarn from my sub-stash down here. Some of it's returning to the main stash, but too much is joining the main stash for the first time. I'm going to leave the heavier winter stuff here and concentrate on summer knitting. My goddaughter needs crop tops and shells and tank tops and cool little skirts.
As soon as the casita cools down, I'm going to go unpin the Forest Canopy Shawl that I blocked earlier. It's definitely dry. It looks pretty good; I'll take a bunch of photos. I threaded a strand of plastic-covered steel wire (bead stringing wire) through the long straight edge and pinned out the points on the other two edges. I strung the wire tightly between the two front legs of the day bed to be sure the edge was really straight. That worked very well.
The feather and fan stole doesn't look nearly as good. I didn't have enough long pins or wire to get the two edges straight, so they wobble all over the place. The scallops came out way too pointy because of the pin shortage. I'm going to re-block it by threading the wire through the edges and tying it to the day bed frame. I'll make the scallops more scallop-y and less pointy, too. I'll take some photos of it now, but I may not show those to the world. However, once I get it wired up, I'll snap a few more for show and tell.
The casita was 88° F when I turned the A/C on, so it should be pretty comfortable after lunch. Blocking is surprisingly hard work with all the back-and-forth iterations. I have to work fast because the relative humidity is 14% outside and things dry very quickly indeed. Spray bottles help a lot.
Today was probably our last day of having our groceries delivered for a while. We intend to go back up to Lancaster for the rest of the summer, only coming down here for short visits. I think we're leaving on Thursday or Friday, but that could change. I've been packing up yarn from my sub-stash down here. Some of it's returning to the main stash, but too much is joining the main stash for the first time. I'm going to leave the heavier winter stuff here and concentrate on summer knitting. My goddaughter needs crop tops and shells and tank tops and cool little skirts.
30 April 2007
And You Think You're Slow....
I'm knitting some four-stitch I-cord for a little pink cotton/model top I started knitting in about 1981. I think I finished it in about a month except for the crocheted cord with bobbles. I don't crochet all that well, so the top got put aside until a friend could teach me. Somehow that never happened. Then the pattern got lost (I sure wish I still had it) and the whole thing just sat. And sat. Until today, when I decided to forget ever finding the instructions and learning to crochet and started a piece of I-cord. I've got about a foot done already. It goes fast, doesn't it?
Here's the top, in all its rolling stockinette stitch glory.
Here's a better photo of the yoke. The top is turned inside and stitched down, with the I-cord inside, so the neckline can be tied. The lace motif is a pineapple. My grandmother crocheted hundreds of pineapple doilies, tablecloths, and other items, which is why I'd picked out this pattern. And why I wished I hadn't lost it.
Can you guess that I'm not wild about finishing?
Incidentally, I know when I knitted this top because I know when the paper my husband gave at the SIAM (an association of mathematicians) yearly meeting we went to was published. Buying handwork projects as souvenirs makes them easy to date. I got a great needlepoint pillow top at the same time. The conference was in Denver, at a downtown hotel, and I studied the phone book and went to Larrimer/Larrimore/Larri-something Square, to a great shop, and bought two projects. I worked the needlepoint when we drove from SoCal to northeast Iowa for my husband's high school reunion, coming home by way of Banff and Waterton and Glacier.
Here's the top, in all its rolling stockinette stitch glory.
Here's a better photo of the yoke. The top is turned inside and stitched down, with the I-cord inside, so the neckline can be tied. The lace motif is a pineapple. My grandmother crocheted hundreds of pineapple doilies, tablecloths, and other items, which is why I'd picked out this pattern. And why I wished I hadn't lost it.
Can you guess that I'm not wild about finishing?
Incidentally, I know when I knitted this top because I know when the paper my husband gave at the SIAM (an association of mathematicians) yearly meeting we went to was published. Buying handwork projects as souvenirs makes them easy to date. I got a great needlepoint pillow top at the same time. The conference was in Denver, at a downtown hotel, and I studied the phone book and went to Larrimer/Larrimore/Larri-something Square, to a great shop, and bought two projects. I worked the needlepoint when we drove from SoCal to northeast Iowa for my husband's high school reunion, coming home by way of Banff and Waterton and Glacier.
04 March 2007
Houston, Commotion Base Here; The Sand Birds Have Landed
Sand birds, you ask? It's like snow birds, who leave places that have snow for warmer climes that don't in the winter, except it's people who leave places that have sand, like the SoCal High Desert (the Mojave), for warmer climes that also have sand, like the SoCal Low Desert (the Sonoran). In other words, my husband, Neil the collie, and me, who summer in Lancaster and winter in Palm Desert.
OK, our two houses are less than 150 miles apart by road and it's only about a 2.5 hour drive when CalTrans isn't working on the roads and it's not a holiday weekend, so it's not exactly a major migration, but I'm here to tell you it's not as easy as loading the dog into the car and driving off. We've got STUFF. George Carlin has explained the problem of stuff very eloquently, and very funnily, so I'll just say that whoever said that our belongings own us, instead of us owning them was right.
Even Neil the collie has stuff, like food and water dishes, beds, kibble, coat rakes, slicker brushes, treats, and pills. In addition, he needs an open area on the floor of the van, about the size of his bed, with everything around it secured so that he won't be buried in an avalanche of books, clothes, laptops, yarn, and everything else we brought with us if we have to stop suddenly.
Anyway, we made the trip on Friday, with the van filled with the most important stuff. On Saturday our friends Don and Pat came down with a small chest freezer and some more boxes. I had to promise Pat that I wouldn't bring any of the books in the boxes back north to Lancaster before she'd agree to bring them down here. She thinks, quite rightly, that I have too many books and that I should get rid of the ones I won't read again. However, I have trouble doing that, perhaps fearing subconsciously that the entire English printed word will vanish overnight and I suddenly won't have anything to read except what I already own.
I did manage to divest myself of about a cubic yard of books during the summer before last, mostly paperbacks. I only did it because I was giving the books to the Friends of the Lancaster Library and not throwing them away. The Friends support our library by selling donated books, so I was able to convince myself that I wasn't discarding these books, but sending them to new readers and helping the Friends raise money. Since my mother was the treasurer of the Friends and very active, the latter was important to me.
Incidentally, the Friends are naming their bookstore after my mother, as a memorial. She would have been both embarrassed and pleased, had she known. She didn't think she was all that special, but she'd have been glad to have her hard work recognized. I'm just plain pleased, because I think she was that special.
We're only going to be down here for about three months, before it gets too warm for us. I'm sure glad we came down, though. I love this house and I love the warmth. Not that this has been the warmest winter, although last summer was one of the hottest on record. It was hot in Lancaster, too, and our air conditioner there gave up the ghost during the hottest week. Naturally.
Anyway, now that I've digressed once, let me do it again and explain about the chest freezer. This is one of those ordinary but seemingly complicated stories about how life works. The freezer had belonged to a friend of Pat's, who was an Los Angeles County deputy sheriff. She moved away because her husband had been transferred and she didn't want to pay to move the freezer, so she gave it to Pat. My mother had a large upright freezer that I would have liked to bring down here after her death, but I felt that moving something that large was going to take more arranging than I had time and energy to do. My mom also, naturally, had a refrigerator that I had to deal with. It's fairly new, having been bought by her homeowner's insurance after the wiring in her kitchen decided to immolate itself, the dishwasher, and the fridge. Pat's refrigerator had been giving her problems, so my refrigerator problem kind of solved itself. I also offered her the upright freezer. She, in turn, offered me the small chest freezer and its transportation south. As a result, we're both really happy. I got a small chest freezer down here and I don't have to deal with my mom's fridge and upright freezer. Pat replaces her older fridge with a more efficient one and gets a big freezer that she'll really use. Life is good.
So, getting back to the move and the stuff, I'd managed to separate my knitting project, the Alien Illusion scarf, and its instructions. I'd put the yarn and needles into a beautiful bag our niece made me for Christmas and put the instructions somewhere else. The problem was, as you can guess, that I couldn't remember where. It had been sort of at the last moment, as I was scurrying around gathering up the final odds and ends, like the copy of Ed Rasimus's second book, Palace Cobra: A Fighter Pilot in the Vietnam Air War, that had just arrived from Zooba.com. Ed is an e-friend of mine from rec.aviation.military who flew F-105s and F-4s in Southeast Asia and it's a really good book. So was his first.
So I've been mildly frustrated by not having the pattern graph and not being able to knit, which I find very relaxing. However, mentioning the freezer here reminded me that I wanted to move some food from the self-defrosting freezer in my side-by-side fridge to the non-self-defrosting chest freezer in the garage, to maintain its quality. The defrost cycle is kind of hard on frozen food after a while. So after I did that I decided to bring a few things in from the van since I was out there anyway. My eye lit on Ed's book and what did I find underneath it but a large envelope with, among other things, my scarf pattern graphs. Who said that blogging wasn't productive?
This is long enough, so I'll write tomorrow about how the actual freeze affected our landscaping. Not to make this a cliffhanger, in case I don't, there was a lot of damage but everything seems to have survived, although a lot of it was damaged. We do have some lemons and tangerines on the respective trees, which I wasn't sure we would.
OK, our two houses are less than 150 miles apart by road and it's only about a 2.5 hour drive when CalTrans isn't working on the roads and it's not a holiday weekend, so it's not exactly a major migration, but I'm here to tell you it's not as easy as loading the dog into the car and driving off. We've got STUFF. George Carlin has explained the problem of stuff very eloquently, and very funnily, so I'll just say that whoever said that our belongings own us, instead of us owning them was right.
Even Neil the collie has stuff, like food and water dishes, beds, kibble, coat rakes, slicker brushes, treats, and pills. In addition, he needs an open area on the floor of the van, about the size of his bed, with everything around it secured so that he won't be buried in an avalanche of books, clothes, laptops, yarn, and everything else we brought with us if we have to stop suddenly.
Anyway, we made the trip on Friday, with the van filled with the most important stuff. On Saturday our friends Don and Pat came down with a small chest freezer and some more boxes. I had to promise Pat that I wouldn't bring any of the books in the boxes back north to Lancaster before she'd agree to bring them down here. She thinks, quite rightly, that I have too many books and that I should get rid of the ones I won't read again. However, I have trouble doing that, perhaps fearing subconsciously that the entire English printed word will vanish overnight and I suddenly won't have anything to read except what I already own.
I did manage to divest myself of about a cubic yard of books during the summer before last, mostly paperbacks. I only did it because I was giving the books to the Friends of the Lancaster Library and not throwing them away. The Friends support our library by selling donated books, so I was able to convince myself that I wasn't discarding these books, but sending them to new readers and helping the Friends raise money. Since my mother was the treasurer of the Friends and very active, the latter was important to me.
Incidentally, the Friends are naming their bookstore after my mother, as a memorial. She would have been both embarrassed and pleased, had she known. She didn't think she was all that special, but she'd have been glad to have her hard work recognized. I'm just plain pleased, because I think she was that special.
We're only going to be down here for about three months, before it gets too warm for us. I'm sure glad we came down, though. I love this house and I love the warmth. Not that this has been the warmest winter, although last summer was one of the hottest on record. It was hot in Lancaster, too, and our air conditioner there gave up the ghost during the hottest week. Naturally.
Anyway, now that I've digressed once, let me do it again and explain about the chest freezer. This is one of those ordinary but seemingly complicated stories about how life works. The freezer had belonged to a friend of Pat's, who was an Los Angeles County deputy sheriff. She moved away because her husband had been transferred and she didn't want to pay to move the freezer, so she gave it to Pat. My mother had a large upright freezer that I would have liked to bring down here after her death, but I felt that moving something that large was going to take more arranging than I had time and energy to do. My mom also, naturally, had a refrigerator that I had to deal with. It's fairly new, having been bought by her homeowner's insurance after the wiring in her kitchen decided to immolate itself, the dishwasher, and the fridge. Pat's refrigerator had been giving her problems, so my refrigerator problem kind of solved itself. I also offered her the upright freezer. She, in turn, offered me the small chest freezer and its transportation south. As a result, we're both really happy. I got a small chest freezer down here and I don't have to deal with my mom's fridge and upright freezer. Pat replaces her older fridge with a more efficient one and gets a big freezer that she'll really use. Life is good.
So, getting back to the move and the stuff, I'd managed to separate my knitting project, the Alien Illusion scarf, and its instructions. I'd put the yarn and needles into a beautiful bag our niece made me for Christmas and put the instructions somewhere else. The problem was, as you can guess, that I couldn't remember where. It had been sort of at the last moment, as I was scurrying around gathering up the final odds and ends, like the copy of Ed Rasimus's second book, Palace Cobra: A Fighter Pilot in the Vietnam Air War, that had just arrived from Zooba.com. Ed is an e-friend of mine from rec.aviation.military who flew F-105s and F-4s in Southeast Asia and it's a really good book. So was his first.
So I've been mildly frustrated by not having the pattern graph and not being able to knit, which I find very relaxing. However, mentioning the freezer here reminded me that I wanted to move some food from the self-defrosting freezer in my side-by-side fridge to the non-self-defrosting chest freezer in the garage, to maintain its quality. The defrost cycle is kind of hard on frozen food after a while. So after I did that I decided to bring a few things in from the van since I was out there anyway. My eye lit on Ed's book and what did I find underneath it but a large envelope with, among other things, my scarf pattern graphs. Who said that blogging wasn't productive?
This is long enough, so I'll write tomorrow about how the actual freeze affected our landscaping. Not to make this a cliffhanger, in case I don't, there was a lot of damage but everything seems to have survived, although a lot of it was damaged. We do have some lemons and tangerines on the respective trees, which I wasn't sure we would.
21 February 2007
Places I've Been
This is a quick map of places I've been. It doesn't include Antarctica, but since that's not a country per se I can hardly complain. It's probably also wrong in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.
Create your own visited country map. Try this; it's a lot of fun if you've been anywhere. The site also has similar maps for the US states and the Canadian provinces and territories (I've been to all of the states and to all of the provinces, but none of the territories).
Here's my husband's map; he went to Finland, Ukraine, and Russia before we were married. Actually, he went to the USSR, which then included a lot of states that are independent now, but I didn't include them.
My husband and I decided to travel when we were young, rather than waiting until we'd retired. When we arrived at the airport in Cairo, Egypt, in 1978 we saw a group of older Americans who were waiting to depart for home. Frankly, they looked dreadful. Exhausted, sick, overwhelmed. We decided then and there not to wait to see the world.
NASA sent us both on a number of overseas trips, mostly to NATO or AGARD conferences, but sometimes just to visit aerospace research organizations. For the latter, we mostly took a few days from our own pleasure trips, for which we, not NASA, paid our airfares and expenses. We just saved a day or two of annual leave and had all the security, etc, formalities taken care of by the government. Generally, it's impossible for a foreign national to just drop in on such establishments; invitations have to go through embassies. An example is the CSIRO research establishment in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1991 we spent a month in Australia and a day there, visiting and talking about aerospace research, mostly in relation to F/A-18s, which the RAAF flies. They sent one of their young engineers to Dryden on an eighteen-month exchange tour about two years later. He worked on the F-18 HARV, High-Alpha Research Vehicle, doing stability and control parameter estimation. While he was there, I got him a flight in the variable-stability Learjet, just as I did for Dryden research engineers, to show him what aircraft handling qualities feel like. I also wrangled him a ride in the backseat of an F-18 just before he left. That was a real thrill for him. His exchange tour would probably never had happened if we hadn't stopped by that day and talked with his management about it.
Create your own visited country map. Try this; it's a lot of fun if you've been anywhere. The site also has similar maps for the US states and the Canadian provinces and territories (I've been to all of the states and to all of the provinces, but none of the territories).
Here's my husband's map; he went to Finland, Ukraine, and Russia before we were married. Actually, he went to the USSR, which then included a lot of states that are independent now, but I didn't include them.
My husband and I decided to travel when we were young, rather than waiting until we'd retired. When we arrived at the airport in Cairo, Egypt, in 1978 we saw a group of older Americans who were waiting to depart for home. Frankly, they looked dreadful. Exhausted, sick, overwhelmed. We decided then and there not to wait to see the world.
NASA sent us both on a number of overseas trips, mostly to NATO or AGARD conferences, but sometimes just to visit aerospace research organizations. For the latter, we mostly took a few days from our own pleasure trips, for which we, not NASA, paid our airfares and expenses. We just saved a day or two of annual leave and had all the security, etc, formalities taken care of by the government. Generally, it's impossible for a foreign national to just drop in on such establishments; invitations have to go through embassies. An example is the CSIRO research establishment in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1991 we spent a month in Australia and a day there, visiting and talking about aerospace research, mostly in relation to F/A-18s, which the RAAF flies. They sent one of their young engineers to Dryden on an eighteen-month exchange tour about two years later. He worked on the F-18 HARV, High-Alpha Research Vehicle, doing stability and control parameter estimation. While he was there, I got him a flight in the variable-stability Learjet, just as I did for Dryden research engineers, to show him what aircraft handling qualities feel like. I also wrangled him a ride in the backseat of an F-18 just before he left. That was a real thrill for him. His exchange tour would probably never had happened if we hadn't stopped by that day and talked with his management about it.
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