we're back from vacation in one piece! the peanut was an amazing traveler and, although she did throw my mobile phone in the toilet, she did really well on this trip. i wish that i had tons to write about but i feel that it's all better expressed through photos this time around. i did get to read (thanks lisa for the copy of the eyre affair! i loved it!) and knit (which i'll take photos of tomorrow) but i'll always be a mommy whether here or another part of the world so my job truly never ends. i'm tired and looking forward to getting back to work on the last of my freelance and the beginning of popknits.

want to enjoy my vacation too? the peanut says...

AAAHHHHHGGG!!!

see the photos in the flickr set!

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or not go as it may be.. i will not be in rhinebeck this weekend, sorry to say, but i took a look at my stash and decided that it's for the best. i am incapable of not buying yarn and i might as well stay far away! i'm sure you'll all have a great time.

we're heading to my parents for the weekend so that the nut can spend some quality time with the grandparents. i did finish my first pair of peanut socktoberfest socks! i hope to get a few FO shots this weekend. the christening gown is looking really good and i even started another mitered square. i hope to get more knitting done this weekend while my mom holds and showers attention on the peanut.

in the meantime, be sure to bookmark this awesome site that i just found, knitmap. just what every knitting traveler needs!

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yep, i was at rhinebeck. i was there almost all of saturday but missed the crucial first 40 minutes of the day when the entire selection of socks that rock sold out at the fold. by the time we got there, their booth was an empty shell and i couldn't bring myself to buy anything else from them. FORTY MINUTES PEOPLE! that's just ridiculous. i'm thinking about boycotting the yarn just on principle alone (not really, but since i don't own any now and may never again, this might be something that i can easily accomplish.)

so, i'll try to keep this post rather short since you've seen a lot of rhinebeck by this point today. i drove up a spidery contingent (veronique, lisa, jessica, and abby) in my trusty ford taurus rental car. the ride up was fairly non-eventful. i managed to navigate both manhattan and new jersey without a problem, and without even planning on it, we met up with the other car of spiders (carrie, jessica, marie, and virginia) at both a rest stop AND the parking lot. good planning. we even managed to bump into more spiders there: amanda, katie, blogless nancy, iraida, sarah scissorina, and julsey.

i have to say that this saturday was CRAZY with people! the place was crowded and swarming with knitbloggers. i was in a total daze so i'm sorry if i walked right past you and didn't say hi. a few of the bloggers i remember meeting: carrieoke, anne marie, big geek beth, januaryone cara, cari and cassie (though i see them randomly in NYC every now and again) and mama-E. big thanks goes out to all the people that walked up to me and introduced themselves. you rock!

here are some pictures of animals:

fluffy bunny!

puppy!

this sheep had a lot to say

aren't they precious!? i just love farm animals. and so do the spiders...

smile jess!

having a great time

i wish i had taken more pictures but i was just too tired to break out my camera at every opportunity and there was a point where some animal fluff flew into my eye and gave me an allergic reaction. it made it hard to actually SEE where i was going! the pregnancy made me especially tired this year but i did really well considering that i drove home and didn't arrive at my apartment until close to midnight! yikes!

for more rhinebeck pictures, check in to the gallery.

now for the yarn haul. i did pretty good this year. i stuck to my "socks and shawls' yarn only" mantra. click on the thumbnails to get more info on each in the gallery.

some closer shots of these yarns are also in the gallery.

so, that's it! we had a good time. i'm still recovering and now there's more yarn than ever to knit with. still to come: some videos i took of the sheep. i have to figure out how to get them on youtube and then i'll post them!

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thank you to everyone who left such kind comments considering the peanut and our expectation of a new baby. it is very exciting! and a new chapter to our life is approaching that i'm both happy and anxious about. there are times that i sit back and can believe that college or high school were just yesterday and then i remember that my 10 year high school reunion was already two years ago! where does the time go? it just seems to slip by more and more each day. i'm sure that time will speed up even more once the baby enters our lives. it'll be interesting to see what happens.

back to san francisco (though that trip is already a week past!), KP and i drove back into the city late on thursday just in time to catch rush hour traffic across the bay bridge. first off, damn that bridge is long! and what are all those cranes for that are just sitting off to the side? i'm not sure. we decided to spend the last few days of our trip at the W hotel and, boy, is that a lovely hotel. really swanky and nice and the staff were outrageously competent. i highly recommend it.

on thursday night, we decided to take it easy because of my knees and had dinner at lucky creation which is a must for all vegetarians! oh my, the sweet and sour pork was AMAZING! they have the best fake meat ever and our HUGE dinner was less than $20. it's a bit of a hole-in-the-wall and definitely dress down if you do decide to go. but don't be turned off by their decor. the food is excellent.

mmmm, hot tea

continue reading -»

ok, let's get right to the chase. i'm pregnant. i'm 13 weeks along and i've been holding out on you! sorry, but them's the breaks in blogland. here's the obligatory sonogram which i just got today:

the peanut.. 13 weeks

my senses tell me it's a boy so if you want to put money on it, i give it 3:1 odds due to mother's instinct. so, now you know why i've been so lagging lately. remember when i was sick back in august? i was on antibiotics, had a cold, AND had the most terrible morning sickness ever. i begged KP to put me out of my misery but he declined. he's a good husband like that. i've since learned that prenatal vitamins make me entirely ill, but 50mg of vitamin B6 twice a day cures nausea, just in case you needed to know. i'm now waiting for my appetite to kick back to normal and then i should feel human again.

as you can imagine, the whole baby thing sorta put a damper on travelling.. especially to wine country! i showed great restraint there, to be sure. the only excellent thing is that now wine/liquor can be shipping to NY state and we bought a couple of cases of wine and champagne of which i will be storing some away for after the baby is born.

let's get this trip back on track.

continue reading -»

i think that the title of this post pretty much says it all. but don't think for one moment that having knee trouble in san francisco got me down one bit. being away from work, on a trip where absolutely nothing was expected of either me or KP, was one of the greatest gifts imaginable right now. i have been down. i have been out. but not anymore. i feel refreshed and revitalized (especially after the two naps i had today.. damn, jet lag sucks.)

i could have blogged from the road but i decided to give myself a break. so i'll present my little trip to you over a few installments.. with lots of pictures just so you won't get bored... and some knitting. i promise.

one of the cliff-like streets that did me in

continue reading -»

aaahhhhhh.. having a full week off from work is such a major luxury nowadays. the bosses always tell you take the time off before the year is over but it's not easy when there's only ONE other person to cover for you. in this case, the week off was well deserved and over way too quickly.

sunset in cape cod

so last weekend, KP and i played it cool and went to LI to visit friends and generally hang out around the house enjoying our time off. on monday, we took to our rental car and drove up to cape cod to visit with our friends lee and jackie in lee's mom's house. lee and jackie also brought along their three vivacious girls just to show us what life is like with three children all under the age of 5. needless to say, it's fun and hectic at the same time.

continue reading -»

it's hard to believe that the trip is over. today KP and i are packing up our things and trying to get everything together which, admittedly, is a little tough seeing as i've bough so many things on this trip! traveling this far away from home is tough. there are two days that you have to devote entirely to flying and then another two for sleeping and acclimating (at the beginning and end of your trip.) the jetlag is crushing and so is the thought that your vacation is over. what you've looked forward to for months, years even, is over and done with. time is no friend of mine.

the last two days here went by super fast. day 11 of our trip was KP's 32nd birthday. we did it up in KP style by going back to the sony store where i bought him a sony librie bookreader as a gift (got to pet the aibos again.. so cute!!) after the sony store, we jumped on the metro and went back to ueno park so that KP could see the pushkin exhibit at the tokyo metropolitan museum. the museum was packed but seeing as we're both rather tall and the japanese are all rather short, we had no problem seeing all the art.

it was nice to wander around the park. the day was really crisp and sunny and there were photographers out taking pictures of the leaves. students were painting the scenery. it was really peaceful.

momiji, watching the leaves change

art in the making

from ueno park, we got some snacks and then went back to akihabara so that KP could get a new pair of headphones. we came back to the hotel and had some food before heading back out to ginza for some department store shopping at mitsukoshi. KP got a really fabulous coat and a scarf there and i added to the lesportsac collection i have been building while here. the big event of KP's bday was going to dinner.

i have to admit that being vegetarian here in japan is nearly impossible. i know some japanese and was able to ask for certain things without cheese but asking for specialty items without meat was difficult even for kat to do when we had her with us. so, sad to say, KP and i had plenty of fish while we've been here. i was able to get across the idea to our hosts that i would not be able to eat (nor stomach) beef, chicken, or pork, but fish was ok. i said little prayers for the fish (yes, i'm atheist but perhaps they are not) everytime they were served to us. i'm certainly not happy about it but it was between that and starving so i chose not to starve. forgive me. i'm looking forward to resuming my vegetarian life in the states.

now, with that said, KP and i had a traditional kaiseki dinner for his birthday which included a whole host of raw fish and certain crazy delicacies that only the japanese would consider a full and hearty meal (read, fugu and shark's fin..) the meal was six courses and like five different teas at the end.

i loved these cups..

after dinner, we went upstairs to fall asleep on a stomach so full i was set to burst.

on our last full day in japan, i wanted to go back to omotesando and to meiji-jingu which is the shrine where emperor meiji was in turned (with his royal consort.) it's a beautiful spot right to the left of bustling harajuku. during the summer, meiji-jingu is full of people and tourists... and weddings (sometimes more than one in one day.. see martine's photos for a look at how this place really comes alive in the summer) but at this time of year, it's very quiet and reserved.

torii

in the evening, KP and i met up with kat again and went to shinjuku via the newest tokyo metro line, the oedo line. we went to the observatory floor of the sumitomo building so that we could see the city laid out below us. tokyo is just so huge!! it goes on and on forever. claire showed up and we had an asian dinner then walked around shinjuku.

before heading out for some karaoke and chu hi!

good times. we ended this trip on the right note, ha. a karaoke pun to end it all. gotta pack now and get ready to head to the airport. see you all in new york soon!

###

this blog entry is a little late, i know, but everyday we've been packing in the sights so that we can see as much as we can before we leave. today, we're heading up to meiji-jingu so i have to be quick!

saturday - KP and i went to ueno park to see what the japanese like to do on their weekends. it's the equivalent to going to central park or prospect park on the weekend, walking around and looking at the people with their dogs...

guinea pig!

or their guinea pigs. this little guy was munching on the grass while his owner watched. several people stopped for pictures including us. he was so cute! there are also tons of performers..

he's got em!

this guy was especially good! KP wanted to go to the pushkin exhibit at the tokyo metropolitan museum but it was so crowded that we actually saved it for yesterday (the 29th), his birthday.

sunday - we got up late on sunday and then went back out to kichijoji to meet up with kat and darin for a day at the local onsen, jindaiji. i was very skeptical about going to an onsen. first of all, there's all that nakedness amongst a ton of skinny, little japanese women. but it wasn't at all like i thought it was going to be. i've been naked at the gym several times so i just pretended that i was there and got over it pretty quick. first you have to get undressed and then wash off all the grime from your body before getting in the onsen water. kat and i really liked this water that looked like coke. really dark and charcoal-like. we soaked there for a long time while chatting away. it was relaly quite peaceful and relaxing. before we knew it the time was up! what a bummer! i could have sat there all day. but we got beers and chatted some more before going to dinner at a local izakaya. the area around jindaiji is amazing though. great little temple and a pet cemetary!

the local area around jindaiji

pet cemetary markers

monday - on monday, we moved from our apato in akasaka to a western upscale hotel in ginza. i'm loving the western bed here, much better for my back. we spent the day hanging about in ginza and also went over to omotesando for some shopping before checking out the nightlife in harajuku.

harajuku station in motion

shopping doesn't make great photos so that's about it for monday. tuesday was KP's bday (i have some pictures from that day coming) and today is our last full day here! more to come..

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it was a busy weekend and i'm dying to update you all on what's been going on here. i feel like i've not had enough time to sit down and really think out my trip but that's better left for the plane ride home, i guess. we only have a few more days here and already i'm a little sad about leaving. it's been such a great time and my new friends here and the experiences we've had have made it even better than i could have hoped. i do miss my bed, my family, my friends and spiders at home though. new york, in all it's grittiness and cold weather ahead, will be welcome when the time comes.

in the meantime, i must sleep. i'm on tokyo time but i don't think that my body is truly used to it. i hope the jetlag on the way home won't be as bad as when we came here! let's hope that since i never truly adjusted on the way here, it'll be easier on the way back!

in the meantime, enjoy some more pictures in the gallery. stories about ueno park, traveling back to kichijoji to hit an onsen and get naked with tons of japanese people, and changing hotels to upscale ginza to come.. around 9:30/11PM EST. later!

sorry, no update with stories as we've just been spending the last 30 minutes trying to call american airlines from overseas (which is IMPOSSIBLE!! we actually had to call american express to have THEM call AA.. the number for japan AA has people who only speak japanese!! american airlines, you bastards are surely going to hear from me when i return to the states and, guess what? i'm not going to be happy) to make sure that they don't screw us over on the way back. anyway, we're off to enjoy the day here. i expect to make some sort of update later but you'll all be in bed. so have a good one!

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for those of you who really only ever come here for the knitting (and i know that's most of you) i've decided to update you all on my knitting progress, however slow that might be. japan is so full of wonderful things to see and do that i'm not getting much knitting time in.

i got about a dozen repeats of the aminami shawl in on the plane ride here before i switched over to casting on for the jaywalker socks (i will update the backpack pages where i return from my trip.. sorry that they aren't up-to-date but i'm sure you get the picture.) i decided that 76 stitches was way too many for a sock so i changed the pattern to 68 and hopefully i won't regret that move. they seem a little tight but i know that i can make the heel a little longer so that they're easier to pull on. if this yarn is anything like koigu then i know i'll be happy. my koigu socks have REALLY loosened up on me since i made them. the fabric has become quite slack and soft so i'm thinking that with some wear, these jaywalkers will fit nicely. i would have joined the KAL that januaryone is hosting but i've been on the other side of the world and didn't even know about it until now. maybe on my next pair.

here is the first sock on its way to nikko this morning!

in the span of the train ride to nikko and back i've managed to get to about 5" in length on the leg and i'm aiming for 5.5" so it's not much longer now before i find out if my gamble paid off.

back to knitting in a moment... did you want to hear about my trip to nikko? it's a quiet little town to the north of tokyo in the mountains. my first advice to those who want to visit is to bring warmer clothes! it was beautiful and 55 degrees here in the city and 40 degrees and practically snowing there. ugh. cold and wet. KP and i went straight to the temples, did the tours, then had lunch at an AWESOME noodle joint along the way where i had the best bowl of tanmen noodles (in fact, best bowl of just noodles) anywhere. it was good that i ate the whole thing and was full for hours. *eh hem* the temples were quite nice too.

love that red

there be dragons

inside the nikko national park is where all the notable temples of the area are located. amongst them is the famous tosho-gu shrine best known for the relief carvings of the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys.

hear no, see no, speak no

there's not much else up here to see besides the fantastic old shrines. i actually liked kamakura a lot more as you can tell from the wealth of pictures taken there. nikko was interesting (KP liked it a whole ton more than me) but just didn't float my boat. at the end of the day, i was happy to be back in our apato in akasaka. it was just too much cold weather and not enough extra clothing and that would drive any sane girl off her rocker.

more images in the gallery. (by the way, stupid gallery is doing something funky with images when i rotate them so please disregard any errors you see in the photos. i will fix them when i'm at home on my own computer. this is the last time that i travel without my powerbook. i feel lost without it!)

ok, back to knitting... i've moved all of the knitting books that i bought in japan into the queue gallery. i can't wait to get home and start translating! all of the patterns in japanese books are well charted and there are usually only a few instructions that have to be translated. after doing a few crochet patterns earlier this year, i feel like i can jump into something a little more complicated this time around. i did find this handy page that has a bunch of knitting kanji already translated and there are several other pages on this site that are helpful in speeding along the process. it's a lot of work but improving my japanese skills and knitting at the same time, well, that's time well spent.

here are just a few of the patterns that i REALLY love from the books that i bought (and this is only a few... i saw several more i would love to try.)

a wrap with holes for your arms

love these cables

this would look great in noro silk garden

excuse my thumbs in that last one.. i was taking pictures of the pages while doing laundry here. love this place we're staying. it's the bomb. more in the queue gallery. so that's it from tokyo. i'm off to bed while the majority of you (on the east coast) are just getting up after a day of turkey-fueled bliss (poor birds.) hope you had a thankful day!

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this will be quick as i'm tired and have to head to bed... we're getting up early tomorrow to head to nikko to see more temples and, well, spend more money as you're supposed to do in japan. i've posted the couple of pictures i've taken since the last post in the gallery. tomorrow's post will be better and when the entire trip is said and done i'll have lots to ponder on about this trip. japan is so full of weird duplicities it's hard to wrap my brain around them when i'm tired from a day of being out and about.

before i go, here i am admiring an aibo at the sony store in ginza. i SOOOOOO want one!!!

check out the photos from days 5 and 6!

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on day 4 we decided to brave the subway and trains once again and head south to kamakura which is best described as temple central. we had heard from many people that it was worth the trip down there and indeed it was. we took the ginza line to shimbashi and then took the JR yosokusa train to kita kamakura (kita meaning "north".) the lonely planet book suggested that we walk through kita kamakura and see the temples along the main road that winds down into kamakura and we took its advice (and we're glad we did! so far both the lonely planet book AND the rough guide have not steered us wrong.. thanks lisa!)

this blog post is better described with pictures but there are a few things to note. one, this is a beauitful time of year to be in japan. the fall soft light falling through the trees is delicious and my pictures do not do it justice. the weather has been really great. a little on the cool side but so far no rain and i've only ever needed my blue coat (which i'm beginning to hate.. the blue coat, that is. i really must get a new fall/spring coat!) two, if you should make it to japan, kamakura should not be missed. it really is a lovely place.

ok, this is what i mentioned in my last post.. this is the cute little guy on the side of a police paddywagon. i'm not sure what the sign says, but from the expression on his face he's saying, hello! welcome to our friendly jail!

our first stop was tokeiji temple..

love this light

serene place

we then walked down the road some more to kenchoji temple.

huge entrance

an impressive backyard

after kenchoji, we had lunch at a udon shop along the road and then headed into town to do a little shopping and stop for a coffee and some cake before heading over to see the daibutsu, which means "big ass buddha".

KP cleanses before entering to see the buddha

yep, it's big

the buddha was impressive but not as impressive as our last stop at hasedera which has a collection of statues of jizo, the patron saint of travellers and the souls of departed children. here women come to pray for children that they have lost through abortion or miscarriage. some of the statues are clothed so that they can stay warm throughout the year.

keep warm!

lots of charms

after haserdera, we traveled back to tokyo to a meal in akasaka at toforo (fresh tofu is AMAZING!) and then to bed where i was happy to be after a long day of walking and still being sick. hopefully i can totally kick this thing by the weekend. i'm not in bad shape after all (all that working out has done me good.) it's mainly a stuffy nose and a small cough.

today (day 5) was a national holiday here and KP and i went out to kichijoji again to visit kat and darin (and their guest, martine! so glad to finally meet you martine!!) we ate a nice thanksgiving meal, drank lots of beer, and hung out most of the day. there aren't many pictures because i having too good a time talking and just taking it easy. i'll add them in with tomorrow picts as we're off to shibuya and shinjuku to see major japanese crowds, the sony store, and night lights. anyway, i'm off to bed!

enjoy TONS more pictures in the gallery.

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while i'm sitting here waiting for my images to upload to the server (damn server's a million miles away!) i thought that i would give you all an update of my travels here in japan.

the flight was same-old same-old. american airlines screwed us over once again and didn't have our vegetarian meals. what else is new there? i can't even begin to tell you how many times this has happened to us. in fact, if you've been reading this blog for over a year you know that it's happened on almost every single trip we've taken (with american or not.) we even called over a week in advance to make sure that they would have our meal correct and they STILL didn't get it right. i'm going to lose it on them when i call them next week. i have to make sure that we get the correct meal on the way back.

we arrived in tokyo 14 hours after boarding the plane in new york, weary and excited. we landed at 4PM tokyo time, left the airport 2 hours later (immigration was the longest line i've seen outside of disneyworld and is akin to herding cattle in the most efficient way possible as only the japanese could do), and made it to the hotel 2 hours after that. tokyo traffic is a bitch. we took a "friendly" airport limousine bus to akasaka prince hotel which is only a block away from where we're staying. i hadn't slept much in 24 hours so i was exhausted to say the least as was KP. he crashed almost immediately while i ran down to the 7-11 (conbini, the japanese word for convenience store), got some konbu onigiri and water, and came back to crash aw well. that was the end of friday.

saturday, we woke up at the butt-crack of dawn, ain't jetlag great? walked around and had some coffee and noshes at the local starbucks. then we headed over to the imperial palace. the palace has this extremely long moat and walkway around it so we decided to walk the entire thing and then head into the palace grounds which are only open on the weekends. it's really quite a stunning place. absolutely GINORMOUS. lots of gardens and walking around.

then we walked over to otemachi and tokyo station where we had italian food for lunch and then attempted the subway. first of all, tokyo is the cleanest city i have ever seen. no trash on the sidewalks. no gum. no vagrants... and so silent. really. it's like no one talks in this city, at least on the weekends. even the subway is quite. no earsplitting shrieking metal-on-metal noises as the trains come into the station. very quiet.. and now i'm beginning to wonder why our new trains in NYC that were just built by the japanese are so loud??

we crashed early on saturday night (gallery has been updated!) after having some indian food. nothing much else to report there.

sunday KP and i headed out to kichijoji so that i could attend a spinning class with my bud, kat, and some of her tokyo stitch 'n bitch pals. we took the subway to the JR trains and thankfully there were ticket attendants because i couldn't read any of the kanji on the machines (the subways have plenty of english.) kichijoji is a very cool part of town. it felt younger and hipper than other parts we have been to so far. i met up with everyone at the station. the men took the two babies and the women headed over to ananda to learn how to use a drop spindle.

it was fun and the lesson was all in japanese but i think that i got the gist of the whole thing. afterward, we went back into kichijoji proper and had lunch at an italian place before heading over to a HUGE craft store called yuzawaya. talk about eight floors of crazy stuff! including a whole half floor of yarn. i bought 20 skeins of some yummy soft merino to make the cabled riding jacket from loop-d-loop (eventually... i still have to make an actual sweater first.. or maybe i'll use this to make something else. anyway, it was a bargian at 20 skeins for less than $60.) more pictures in the gallery... then, after yarn heaven, the party broke up and kat, claire, and i headed into inokashira park to meet up with our men and then to kat and darin's place for a little more drinking, talking, spinning, and knitting.

many thanks goes out to kat and darin for opening their home to us!! ok, that was sunday.

monday we actually slept in so now i think that we're on tokyo time finally (though i'm finishing up this entry at 7AM on tuesday morning because i caught a cold here.. damn airplanes!! so i'm not sleeping all that well without that wonderful afrin nasal spray that i can't find anywhere here.) KP and i got udon in our area of akasaka and then went to akihabara so that his head could explode at the sight of tons of electronics. we saw tons of things that we don't have in the states like SD mp3 players the size of a box of matches and tons of cameras and computers. KP and i found this store that sold all manner of old video games for any kind of console you can remember. he bought a few games cheap for an old sega handheld that he has lying around at home.

more on japan later! including the cute graphics and comics everywhere (including the cute little "helpful" animal that we saw in the police paddywagon), the police and protests in akasaka across the street from where we're staying, and a trip to kamakura that we're going on today.

visit the gallery for 8 pages of picture goodness.

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Your Birthdate: January 18

You are a cohesive force - able to bring many people together for a common cause. You tend to excel in work situations, but you also facilitate a lot of social gatherings too. Beyond being a good leader, you are good at inspiring others. You also keep your powerful emotions in check - you know when to emote and when to repress.

Your strength: Emotional maturity beyond your years
Your weakness: Wearing yourself down with too many responsibilities
Your power color: Crimson red
Your power symbol: Snowflake
Your power month: September

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

snowflake? that's my POWER SYMBOL? i HATE snow. almost as much as i winter, that crappy season i was born in. i'm glad my power month is september. it's a more likeable month.

by the way, did you see that i finally got around to updating my keitai gallery? for months, i let my images just sit on my mobile phone because bluetooth on my powerbook was too damn flaky but i really needed to empty it so that i can take lots of keitai pictures in japan like all the japanese! so i paired it up with my computer and, wow, since i've updated to tiger the thing works like a charm. no more turning the phone off and then back on again in order for my computer to recognize it. and boy am i glad that i use cingular and not verizon in this case. verizon INTENTIONALLY CRIPPLES their bluetooth phones so that you can't download/upload images or ringtones to them. you have to use their site and pay for the trasfers over the network. what a scam.

anyway, here are a few of my favorites from the gallery.

this was sent to me by keith during a really sweltering hot day in the summer. the squirrel was so hot that it had to lay down.

look at this beautiful child using a treo! holy crap! i remember the first computer that required that i use a mouse and i couldn't get the hang of it for months!

kat and joy. this is the night that i met the founding members of the spiders and my life was changed forever.

yes, your eyes do not deceive you. that is a 4"x6" battlestar galactica poster in my office. love ebay.

KP as cheese. this is a VEGAN man who had to spend four weeks in wisconsin. they all thought he was nuts.

more photos of strange things in the gallery. i tend to take a lot of pictures of food that i eat so some of it may be boring. other things are just downright strange. enjoy.

ok, packing commences in full force tonight for the trip to japan. we'll be spending the majority of our time in tokyo, walking the streets, shopping, visiting temples, and observing tokyoites in their native environment. we're planning on making a few day trips to nikko and kamakura but tokyo is HUGE! i'm sure that the two weeks we're there will be only JUST enough time to see all the worthwhile stuff. i'm anxious (really, i'm nervous!) to break out my nihongo and wow KP with my linguistic skills. i'm sure that i'll choke up and not be able to speak for days. hopefully i'll be getting together with kat and martine and another cool girl, stephana, all who i've met through this here blog.

the question of vacation knitting was really weighing heavily upon me these past few days but i think that i have it all figured out now. i'll be bringing the aminami shawl (the current ball of yarn and another), the mitered square project (two balls of yarn to make a total of four as i've already finished two), socks that rock with a couple of patterns since i can't decide what to do yet, and five balls of DB cotton DK in different colors to make amigurumi! it's just enough projects to keep me busy when i don't want to read. as for books, i think that i'm going to re-read the ender series by orson scott card and possibly brave new world.

oh! almost forgot... i'm near the completion of another pair of turkish slippers! this time i am double-stranding the yarn for added coverage during the winter months. i'm using some funky acrylic that i got from katie at the yarn swap this past weekend.

it's the black and multi-colored skein near the bottom of this picture. i'm calling them the uno slippers since all of the colors remind me of uno cards! gotta finish them up tonight and bring them with me to japan tomorrow. you won't find many posts here while i'm gone. KP is bringing his ibook though so i'm hoping to update maybe once or twice over the next few weeks if only to let you know that i'm alive and happy. in the meantime, be of good cheer.

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