how to hit the reset button

1) Check in early at a boutique-y little hotel on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco's North Beach.

Hotel Boheme--the green building

2) Enjoy the room.


3) Oogle over hot Boyfriend.

TheMostImportantGuy

4) Stroll around the neighborhood, take a few photos.


5) Pop into Rose Pistola for a late afternoon snack of sauteed garlicky spinach, grilled broccoli rabe, a salad of roasted beets, and nettle ravioli in marinara.


6) Go to Cobb's Comedy Club, see Jim Norton and laugh a whole lot. I was going to insert a YouTube video here, but the funniest ones aren't kid friendly. Happy hunting, though.... ;-)

7) After the show go out and have a midnight snack at the one very delicious Indian Restaurant (which is oddly connected to an Irish Pub...but whatever...it rocked).

8) Wake up in the morning and have a cappuccino.

not where we had coffee,
but the view from where we sat and had coffee

9) Head over the Castro and hook up with the San Francisco Sock knitters for the monthly meet-up. Have another coffee. Oogle at TheMIG some more.

10) Quick stop at ImagiKnit for a needle and some lovely sterling and glass seed bead stitch markers (spoiled I am, yes).

11) Visit Carleigh, her hubby, and their new baby. (I know, I know....I don't know how I managed to not take a photo of her magical cuteness. It might have been 'cuz daddy was hoggin' da baby---not that I blame him. She's adorable.)

12) Take the scenic route home to the kennel to pick up the DogDogDog.



I am feeling much much better. I really needed the mini-vacation after all that boo-hoo-ing last week. Not that there is anything wrong with boo-hoo-ing, mind you.....but it was a much needed shift.

and even with the best intentions, she is still tardy

Yesterday. It was only 7:10 am. And my entire day got derailed.
By this little guy:



That's a hummingbird in a coffin being prepared for burial. *sigh*

Let me tell you. I did something different yesterday. I let the kittehs out before taking MyFavoriteKid to the bus stop, and clearly that was a fatal error. In the 7 minutes it took me to get there and back, one of the cats caught their very first bird. They were going bananas with it by the time I walked in the door.

Now, I'm not a big fan of my kittens killing any animals. But I know that cats will be cats, and I know that I am going to be seeing more of this. I also know that a HUMMINGBIRD AS A FIRST KILL is pretty danged impressive. But I have some special feelings about hummingbirds, more so than the average bird (sorry, but I do discriminate, apparently).

In Native American spirituality, the hummingbird represents (in some circles) "Joy". So here I am, at 7-something in the morning, being faced with what I see as being "The Death of Joy." Now, this wouldn't be so bad if MrHummingbird was dead....but he was not. He was still alive when I got here. I got him away from the kitties, and I tried real hard to see if there was something I could do for him. He was breathing real hard, and I did some mojo-jojo energy type work to see if I could give him a hand. He opened his eyes and looked at me a few times, and after awhile, his breathing slowed, and he passed.

I lost it. LOST. IT.

Now, I don't want to go on harping about the car accident crap forever, but for those who are newer here and might not have the whole story, the reader's digest version is this:
Getting used to living my life with only one leg is NOTHING compared to living with the memory of being trapped in the car after the accident for two hours before anyone spotted me in my car. I was awake. I went through allllllllll the associated thoughts and emotions, if you can imagine.

How this relates is that this poor bird was dying from a traumatic experience right in front of me the day after the 5 year anniversary of my accident, and....well.....let's just say I cried so much yesterday that I couldn't get my face un-splotchy long enough to take those photos of the shawl.

So I took this one today...



...and now realize that I always seem to cut my head off anyhow, so sheesh....why I didnt just take it all red faced and spotty, I have no idea.

Hypoteneuse
Ravelry project page ~ Ravelry pattern page ~ Designer's pattern page

The other thing I did yesterday, in attempt to settle myself, was to wind 1400 yards of laceweight yarn, "ol' skool" style. For those of you who don't knit or play with string....that is A LOT of yarn to wind by hand.


Don't let the soda can fool you. That is very skinny yarn in one very big ball. It took foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, and it took a whole lot longer than I expected. It's for the next shawl I am about to work on.

I have a few other things to show you, and my PLAN is to be back tomorrow.
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reminder: my comments to your comments are back in the comments. If you even care. Just want y'all to know I DO actually read and appreciate what you have to say!

5 years

Wow. Long time, no blog.
I have thought about the blog DAILY, and have been avoiding the computer like the plague lately.
I have a desire to type, though...and I do have a big chunk of time tomorrow to do so, and so I shall.
But for tonight, I just want to feel cozy and held, maybe knit, and sleep.

on the altar, five years related

Today is the 5 year anniversary of the accident. I knew it was sometime this week, but I wasn't exactly sure which day exactly. That should tell you how much I have moved on. With my logical brain, anyhow.
There is still another part of my brain that keeps track, though....and every year I start behaving oddly a couple of weeks before. Today I had a little anxiety ramping up for no apparent reason, and then remembered the anniversary was this week. I was on the road when I realized it, and had to call TheMostImportantGuy and have him search the archives of my blog to find out the exact date (ha!!).

It was today.

So I decided to knit the last 7 rows of a shawl I have been working on since forever. It's been sitting in my knitting bag and waiting for a simple garter stitch border for 2 or 3 weeks now. Lame. Anyhow, I knit it up, bound it off, soaked it, blocked it. It is drying now. It's a very cozy shawl, like a big giant hug.


Tomorrow it will be "the day after", and I will have a new cozy big giant hug to wrap myself up in, and then all will be right with the world. Sorta. There's still some "stuff" going on.

More photos tomorrow, but really...more of an update ;-)