Friday, June 30, 2006
Since I have no new knitting news of interest to report, I'd like to share with you, on this 4th of July weekend, the other addiction that I have to attend to on a daily basis.
Mojitos. BRING IT.
I make my mojitos like the way one might make a parfait, or a chocolate sundae: in layers.
- First, squeeze a lime. My metric is usually one lime per drink, but sometimes I'll juice two. When I'm feeling very daring, or when I have run out of limes, I will squeeze a lemon instead. Sometimes, like last night, I might even squeeze a lime AND a lemon. I NEVER use anything that comes out of a bottle or that plastic lime thing.
- Have glasses ready. I usually use squat scotch glasses as this keeps the alcohol-level-per-serving in check. Taller glasses are reserved for special days.
Add a heaping tablespoon of bar sugar into your glass - the more sugar the better - then add lime juice. Stir until sugar has dissolved.
Then tear the leaves from 2-3 sprigs of mint - the more mint the better - and muddle them in the lime juice to release the minty essence. I use the handle of knife for muddling.
- Now fill your glass with crushed ice. Regular ice is fine, but I find my drink is more refreshing somehow with crushed ice.
- Now add rum. I usually eyeball it, but you may discover later when you've woken up with pounding eyeballs that eyeballing is a dangerous technique. What you want is about 1.5 to 2 shots of rum. And only light rum will do. I use Bacardi.
- Optional: Now add a splash of whiskey. I use Jameson. Just a splash or so. This is my own twist on the drink, discovered when I was just short of rum for a full drink, so I topped the glass with whiskey instead. It turned out pretty good.
- After the alcohol's in place, top off with a splash of club soda, stir lightly, and garnish with a sprig of mint. Enjoy!
It should only be enjoyed once per evening. This drink is pretty potent, the way I make it.
We are heading to western Mass. for 4th July weekend, and of course the questions I always have to ask before we go to western Mass is 1) do I need to make a stop at WEBS? and 2) do I need to make a stop at Col0rful Stitches? In other words, Do I need more yarn?
I think the answer to that is NO, but then I think of my upcoming trip to Philly, and I'm swishing my tail...Know how my high school bff invited me to the lake in NH a few weeks ago, and I couldn't get there because I left my wallet on a subway (I did get it back finally)? Well to make up for that I'm going to spend 4th of July with her in Philadelphia, where she's been studying for her anthropology doctorate. She goes to Africa next month for a year or so for research towards her dissertation. Here is an excerpt of her proposal:
I take as a case study a rural district in central Mozambique where Pentecostal/Charismatic African Independent healing churches and female spirit mediums are both undergoing rapid growth. It examines the ways in which language is used as a critical means through which healing is effected in the ceremonies of spirit mediums and of healing churches.
I'm like, Whuh.
I leave Monday via Amtrak. Taking the train will be fun, and with 6 whole hours at my disposal, what will I knit? Rose of England is too unwieldy, I still can't garner interest to knit my mom's sweater (sorry Mom), so the only choice I have is to knit socks. Sigh. Such a burden. Really it's not such a bad thing since I'm planning to gift them for Christmas, but the problem is which sock yarn do I bring? I have three skeins of Regia self-striping which I don't feel like using right now because the wool is itchier and hot than the merino variety. So I have a skein of Koigu multicolored, but I'm kind of not into the multicolored at the moment...
Long story short, do I get more solid or semi-solid sock yarn, even though I so don't need them? I know as soon as I step in WEBS or Col0rful Stitches I won't be able to control myself. But I want sock yarn. But I have some already. But I want others. Damn this horrible sock addiction.
Filed Under: Cocktails | Life
Thursday, June 29, 2006
I started on another sock, bad, undisciplined me. I thought I'd do an anklet version of the "Bed Sock" from Knitting Vintage Socks, and try a tubular cast on. I can see why people get giddy at the sight of tubulars. It's so clean, so mesmerizing, so clever.
I don't like this sock pattern though. In fact I don't think I much like anything in this book, except for "Child's First Sock," and that's only because it looks like Pomatomus, with smaller scales.
That's all the knitting I've done in the last 24 hours. Kind of hard to update every day or every other day when you accomplish too little to report on...
...so here is a completely unnecessary picture of Veeb's famed BCB's (Bi-Colored Ballz).
Veebs, ready for his early physical.
Filed Under: Cats | Socks
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Here is the progress so far with Rose of England. Riveting, isn't it? I'm only this far into the pattern:
Mired in row after row of p3tog's and m3's, with row after row of ever-increasing stitches. Making the rose petals will break up the monotony, but after that, more stitch pattern repeats for a loooong time.
That dropped stitch I made last week - did a bad job picking it up. The mangled parts are noticeable even to the untrained eye. OH WELL. Just can't seem to garner enough perfectionism to care. Too lazy.
I was almost too lazy to make this consecutive-day post. I just got back from playing hooky all day long. (For the record, I do work. But not very hard.) First I went to the library in the North End and picked up Knitting Vintage Socks. Then I hopped over to Filene's Basement - I liked to call it Feline's Basement - to buy a replacement RedSox cap. I was going to get the green cap with the clover stitched on the back to commemorate me being newly Irish and all, but damn it was really really green. The Asians don't pull off green so well.
After Filene's, I made a quick stop at Windsor Buttons to kill some time and not buy any yarn, then rounded the corner to meet my friend Kitty (who had just quit her job and has 2 weeks before her new job starts) at the theatre for a matinee. And it wasn't even noon yet! The last time I saw a movie that early was...never! Yes, we were two grown women out to see Cars before the sun was high.
After the movies we had sushi at the Corner Mall Food Court in Downtown Xing. A little sushi stand across from Dunkin and Sbarro in a ghetto mall seems a horrible, illogical place to have raw fish, but really the fish is no joke: They have incredible, fresh sushi.
After lunch we walked the entire (nearly) length of Boston, from Downtown to Fenway, but not before stopping once for lemon slush at the corner of the Public Gardens. It was hot out there.
It was at this time that we were approached by some intern working for the Metro morning commuter paper. She was working on the "What Do You Think?" opinion section and wanted to ask us the question of the day. It went something like, What is your opinion on Vermont's campaign financing law? a topic that I am very, very, extremely not opinionated about. I pulled something out of the air (it doesn't matter since they distill what you say into like, 10 words or less), got my picture taken, and will be in tomorrow's paper. Ha!
But please don't look for me, fellow Bostonians. It was hot and windy and my hair was plastered all over my face and my posture was all rickity; I think I was standing pigeon-toed with my butt sticking out.
We ducked into a few stores along Newbury before catching a breather at a bar near Fenway, and had a beer. By this time it was 6pm, we parted ways, I went home and made myself a mojito.
Quite a productive day, I'd say.
It sure is good to be self-employed, especially in the middle of summer :)
Filed Under: Lace | Life
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
A true conversation.
Mom: So you are thinking you can have a baby right?
Me: I guess.
Mom: So when do you think you'll have the baby?
Me: Errrrrr...
Mom: BeFORE or AFter you move to Taiwan?
Me: Too many...hypothetical questions...Cannot...compute...
Mom: Please you should have a girl. A girl! She will be so cute! Hee hee!
Me: As if I have control over any of that.
Mom: Oh you do! You can control it. Naturally.
Me: What.
Later, recounting the conversation with Duck
Me: So my mom was going on (as your mom has) about us having a girl. We must have a girl. And I said, I can't control that. And she said, Yes you can.
Duck: WHAT
Me: That's what I said.
Duck: What's the secret. SO I WON'T EVER DO IT.
Me: So your boys are either X or Y right? Apparently, Y boys live for only 24 hours, while X boys live for 72 (or something).
Duck: I see where you're going with this. You have to store it in your mouth.
Me: So if you TIME it so that we "get together" (her words) 24 hours before you (as in me) germinate, most the Y's will have died and you'll have girl.
Duck: Wow.
Me: Dude, technically I don't know how babies are made in the first place, since she never told me, so this is all very advanced and potentially confusing information.
Duck: Tell her you need explicit instruction.
Me: "Mom, what does it mean to 'get together'?"
Duck: "Hey is the sp3rm supposed to be in my nose? Boy or girl if it goes in my nose?"
Me: HAHAHA yeah! "If it goes in my butt, it'll be a boy, right?"
***
Sorry, I had to share. My mom cracks me up. Ever since I told her I was not violently opposed to the idea of having children (as I once was), she took that to mean I will be having ALL of the children, and suddenly we're having conversations that not so long ago she would have rather drowned herself over than partake. She went from, You Will Never Know What Sex Is to How to Get the Sex You Want. She sure did sail right over the basics. And I wanted to call her on it, oooo how much I wanted to call her on it.
Filed Under: Life
Friday, June 16, 2006
Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me.
Pattern: Pomatomus
Yarn: Koigu semi-solid in colorway I don't know, 2 skeins
Needles: Size 1
Maybe you are sick of seeing another pair of Pomatomii. I dong care. I love Pomatomus. It makes such lovely scallops.
Also, I am drunk.
 Why am I drunk? Because I am sad. I am compensating. I am supposed to be drunk in a lakehouse next to GOOSE POND in New Hampshire right now with my bestest friend from high school, before she leaves for Mozambique for years and years. But the stars were aligned against me today. I got up early this morning to finish up work, got a backpack ready, cut a bouquet-full of mint from the backyard for mojitos by the lake, got the car packed up, made sure I plugged the satellite radio correctly to all the orifices so I could listen to Howard on the way, blah blah blah, ready to go at 3pm. And then realized, Where is my wallet? Where is it? I can't find it. Wallet where are you?
I turn the house inside out all the while knowing I most likely left it on the train yesterday on my way back from jury duty. I hate you jury duty, civic privilege be damned. Let me tell you, I have actually been selected as a juror once and your right to a fair trial was totally dismantled by one that was SO uninteresting, with the lawyers SO bumbling and ineloquent, none of us had ANY idea what was going on. We never made it to deliberations (defendant ended up plea-bargaining, as he had incriminated himself during examination. Not that any of us had noticed), but if we had, oh god. Does a fair trial involve vacant blinking and blank stares and silence? I don't think so.
Luckily yesterday we were all dismissed, after hours and hours and hours of waiting around to die.
Pomatomus against Japanese paper.
Maybe that's why I like this pattern so much.
It reminds me these stylized clouds.
On the other hand I got to finish Pomatomus. Jury duty is good for knitting at least, if not for a fair trial. This chick sitting next to me, though, did not have knitting, nor a book, nor nary a hangnail to pick at. She just stared straight ahead the whole time, and let me tell you it drove. me. crazy. I don't know how many times I took a quick peek to my left see if she was doing anything to keep herself occupied, but her glassy eyes stared straight ahread. For five. Miserable. Hours. Shoot me!
After I ransacked the house for my wallet and called all credit card companies to make sure there were no funky charges in the last 24 hours, I finally went to North Station's lost and found to see if they had my wallet. And they did! YAY!
But it was locked up and the guy who had the only key was gone for the week. SUCK! No one else has the key? No one?
The guy behind the counter was very nice but totally unhelpful. "I don't agree with the policy, if it were up to me I'd give you your wallet right now, but he's a union man....a union man...a union man..."
He must have said this 5 times as if I would nod in sympathetic agreement, but I have no idea what signifance a union guy would have over being able to turn a key or not. I want my wallet now damnit! My license is in there! I have to make it to New Hampshire!
I walked out of the train station empty handed, and stopped at the usual liquor store for some rum, for my sad, uncelebratory mojito. I was frazzled and in need of a tall minty drink. But of course it was not to be! Of course this was the one day of all days I get carded!
I walked out of the liquor store empty handed. Had to get Duck to pilfer some alcohol for me, like some common tenth-grader.
Stars. And planets. All misaligned.
So Goose Pond in NH was a bust. I was/am sooo disappointed. There were to be loons (i love loons) and owls (i love owls) and grilling and drinking and a lake and stars. And my BFF.
I dig the tubular bind-off.
But not the nasty chicken skin legs.
But I have another pair of Pomatomus. I love these puppies. I knit them toeup.
Here are the details:
1) I provisionally casted on 30 stitches for the toe.
2) I short-rowed down to 10 stitches, then back up to 30.
3) After picking up the stitches from the provisional cast-on, I have 30 stitches for the sole, and 30 stitches for the instep.
4) I start knitting in the round, increasing one stitch at each end for the sole until I have 32 stitches, and one stitch at each end for the instep, every other row, until I have 36 stitches. So sole = 32 sts, instep = 36 sts.
5) I start Chart B on the instep for 2 full chart repeats.
6) Then I start the short-row heel on the sole, going down to 12 stitches, and then back up to 32. (2 chart repeats plus short row worked nice and snug for my size 6 US feet)
7) As I'm working the last row of the heel, I pick up 4 more stitches on the sole to get 36 stitches, and rearrange the stitches so to get 24 stitches on 3 needles. Then I start Chart A and work that for 3 pattern repeats.
8) I do 20 rows of ribbing for the cuff, and do a tubular (knit one, purl one) bind-off.
I'm wearing these now. They are comfy and snug and covered with cat hair already.
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Socks | Pomatomus
Thursday, June 08, 2006
I feel like a bride. It is June afterall, and how amazing are these peonies? I saved them this morning from a watery grave, as all blooms were bowed to the wet soggy ground from the weight of their own heads and a day and night's steady rain. They smell heavenly. So much pretty, pink goodness...
"Yes, you are correct. Few can handle my pink little nose.
It is so pink. So little. So devastating."
Filed Under: Life
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Pattern: Pomatomus sock from knitty.com
Yarn: Merino wool I bought on ebay
Needles: Size 0 dpns
I consider this pair a practice pair. After declaring I would never knit socks again due to bad first sock experience, I couldn't help myself and thought I'd try these. The first sock I knit per instructions - top-down, gusset heel, wedge toe, grafted toes.
The second sock I did toe-up, with a short row toe, short row heel, and tubular bindoff. Except for the scallop pattern, they're really two entirely different socks. But it's all good - I have mirrored scallops!
Different heels, same fit
I love this pattern. I have one more pair to complete, done toe-up, and this one will definitely be matching. After this I'm thinking I might go back to the top-down, gusset heel flap method. Fitwise I can feel no differences between a gusset and short row heel. They're both comfortable. I was only sold on the short row for awhile there because it's just so easy. But the gusset is pretty...and it's nice to change things up a bit.
Pretty tubular
One method I'm definitely sold on is the tubular bind-off (Vogue Knitting as reference). Nice and elastic and really neat-looking too, especially with the 1x1 ribbing. I'll have to learn how to do the tubular cast-on next.
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Socks
Thursday, June 01, 2006
We're back from Maine, tanned, relaxed, and full of shellfish. It's amazing how a trip - no matter if it is a mere hour's worth of driving - tricks your brain into thinking you're far away from home, and so how cleaner the air, how bluer the Atlantic, how colder the beer, how tastier the food, so that you must order one lobster at every single meal and not feel even slightly guilty for the indulgence. Vacations put this weird happy smog in your head that makes you think you're full of cash and enough digestive juices to break down the bite after biteful of sweet lobster flesh. I mean lobsters can be had just as easily in Boston, but only on vacation would I ever consider having it for THREE MEALS IN A ROW. It seemed like such a good idea. But though you might not feel that twinge of irresponsibility, your colon will. Your poor, twisted colon will.
I could go down this road further but I think I'll just stop right there.
We totally lucked out on the weather this weekend. You never know what you might get at the end of May in New England, even if summer is technically only a few weeks away. It was supposed to rain on Saturday, the day we set out, but luckily weathermen are idiots and I bet my cats could forecast the weather just as well by reading the patterns they make in their litterbox. After Kitty and Tomcat arrived in Boston, we hustled to Ogunquit and made it there in just over an hour. We checked into the "resort" (really a timeshare of condos) that turned out to be thoughtfully stocked with a huge lobster pot in the kitchen, and was only a 1 minute walk to the action. We walked down the driveway way and across the street, and before we knew it we were looking at ocean.
Later that night we had our dinner out Arrows. FaaAAAaancy. It was dark by the time we got there, otherwise I'd be showing you pictures of me trying to eat the wisteria that were blooming deliciously over the entrance of the farm-house-turned-restaurant. We had a table overlooking the large backyard garden and even in the dark I could make out the bushels of lilacs lining the yard. Wisteria and lilacs drive me WILD. Frothing-at-the-mouth kind of wild. I missed lilac season in Boston when I was down South, but Maine is just far up north enough to be 2 weeks behind schedule, so there were lots of lilacs still in bloom.
The food at Arrows was easily the most expensive I've ever had, anywhere in the world, and logically you would then think it was the best food I've ever had anywhere. It was great food, but I can't say if, considering the price, it was the BEST I've ever had. If you were to graph the price of an entree against its tastiness, I think at the $26 mark, the line on the graph would just plateau. After $26, you could put one more ingredient or one million more ingredients into the entree, and it would probably be just as tasty as if you hadn't at all. Know what I mean? And the starting price for each entree were way over $26...
This was my dish:
Soy lacquered Tai (snapper-like fish) with Thai eggplant, baby bamboo in a grilled shiitake mushroom sauce with a hot and sour lobster broth and daikon dumplings. Accompanying the broth was a quarter-sized dollop of sambal which the waitress told me was made from "like, 50 different spices." The dish was delicious but I'd bet that 3/4 of the price was in that small bowl of broth and that tiny plop of sambal, not the fish.
It is however the little accents like that that I end up remembering most about a dish. Duck and I had dinner once at No.9 Park in Boston two years ago (very highbrow), and the ONLY thing I remember about our entire meal was this shot of tarragon frappe that accompanied my dessert. It was strange and amazing and I can still taste it. The lobster broth and sambal were small but wonderful, so I'll probably be thinking about them long after the main fish.
Sunday was a glooooorious sunny day. A perfect day for long, ankle twisting walks along the rocky beach, a yummy lunch of lobster roll and rum punch by the ocean, then a Booze Cruise along the coast with more rum punch. While we were waiting for our cruise to begin we found out that President Bush the Senior had lunch at the restaurant across the one where we were and we probably just missed seeing him by a few minutes.
The boat ride was nice until I started to feel queasy with 1 hour and 28 minutes to go. The cruise was 1 1/2 hour long.
By this time we had long abandoned our plans of cooking lobsters ourselves. Really, who wants to cook while on vacation? So we didn't. More lobsters for dinner at another oceanside restaurant. Kitty and Tomcat had theirs baked and stuffed, I had mine boiled over a bed of steamers and mussels - and to start with, a really thick and hearty bowl of clam chowder - and Duck was the odd bird out with his bowl of scallops swimming in this bacon and bleu cheese sauce. Oh. My. By the end of this meal we were all clutching our sides crying. Why Lobster why can I not say No to you?
Lobster Four Ways: in a roll, boiled with drawn butter, bisected and stuffed with breadcrumbs and more lobster, as beer
We ended the night with a game of Trivial Pursuit. Boys vs Girls. Obviously the girls won, decidedly. Look at our huge brains, enhanced by lobster tail.
Monday morning Duck made French toast for breakfast. We were all crazed for something uncooked and crunchy. Nonetheless, after Kitty and Tomcat had to leave to catch their train back home, I got another hankering for a lobster roll. After this last indulgence did I finally learned my lesson. That night Duck and I went to the grocery store, bought two ears of corn, boiled them and ate them plain. We couldn't even handle a pat of butter. For dessert, grapefruit. So nice on the digestive system!
The Bush Compound in Kennebunkport
Duck and I stayed for a couple more days. We took a drive to nearby Kennebunkport and without meaning to, meandered by the Bush Compound. It's huge and sprawling and stands on its own peninsula. The Texas flag waves from out front, right next to the Saudi flag. Ha ha.
I took a couple of pictures from across the water and when I got back into the car, Duck told me that while we were snapping photos and idling around, each of us were in the crosshairs of a sniper's rifle. Do you think?! I said. SO COOL. I suppose that makes sense - but for an ex-President? Oh so ex-President but father of very unpopular, could-really-do-without-him, current President. Yes it does seem plausible. I suppose instead of pulling out a camera I could have pulled out a missile launcher from my purse. Luckily for me I left it at the hotel. I wonder what I look like through a scope?
Perkins Cove at night
Knitting content coming...some day!
Filed Under: Life | Travel | Ogunquit
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