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2003-03-02, 6:40 p.m.
I've lived in the East Bay for over six years now...but yesterday was my first ever time going to Tilden Park. 
I'm sick. Cold medicine makes me groggy and wake up with a hangover. I'm at work because I need to finish some things before I leave for Europe on Thursday. I'm loading up on the Vitamins in hopes that I'll be better by then. What if they quarantine me? It was a beautiful weekend, despite being sick.
Here's the scarf I'm currently working on: Its really really soft GGH Yarn (Vamos and something else), Cast on 19, seed stitch. Its sooooo soft and fuzzy:
Hmmm...the picture is a little dark. I've gotten more orders for marble magnets/pushpins--yay!
No more blanket hog problems! J & I have been sleeping on a King-sized bed for almost two years, but we had a Queen-sized comforter. It never occurred to me to buy a new comforter until last weekend. After picking up some duvet covers at Ikea (in pink!), we used the appropriately sized comforter for the first time last night. Yay! My aunt shares a room with two other patients. One is a young woman, probably two years younger than I am, who has her leg in traction and spends a lot of time complaining, bugging nurses, asking ME for help, and whining. My aunt used to feel sorry for her so she'd have me also help that girl--until we found out how she fucked up her leg. Dumbshit jumped off a roof.
Four years ago, I returned from a few months in Vietnam speaking incredible Vietnamese. I was comfortable speaking to shopkeepers in Vietnamese and did half of my thinking and dreaming in Vietnamese. Because I don't live with my parents and rarely have the occasion to speak Vietnamese these days (except for 10 minutes a week to my mom), I thought I'd lost it. I go to nail shops and Vietnamese restaurants and speak English to them. For all they know, I'm Chinese. Over the past week, I've spent some long hours with my aunt in the hospital, just me and her. She's pretty talkative, so she tells me stories about growing up in Vietnam, about what she did when she first got to the U.S., how she makes friends with random people on the street, how the MUNI busdrivers will stop the bus and help her with her groceries, how to make my favorite dishes...I've been speaking a lot of Vietnamese lately...and it all came back fairly easily. And wow--I dreamt in Vietnamese last night. That hasn't happened since I was in Vietnam. And I thought I'd lost my language skills--but I guess its more something that lies dormant than something I'll ever completely lose. I hope I can be as good natured and silly as my aunt when I'm her age or in her situation.
I had a great time hanging out with my aunt this weekend. She is HILARIOUS and all the doctors and nurses love her. And its always nice to reaffirm what a great extended family I have. Ten days til Europe!
Yay! I got my first marble magnet/pushpin order. So I'm thinking they'll probably go for $8/8 magnets PLUS shipping. I haven't really worked out the logistics quite yet...but email me if you want a set. I've figured out paypal.
I can barely move my upper half. I had my private muay thai lesson yesterday and spent the latter half throwing my instructor over my shoulder and onto his back. I also spent some time getting flipped. Bruises galore, this morning. All my back, arm, and shoulder muscles ache. My first not-a-scarf! When I got home, I spent three hours knitting this coif, using a technique (increasing) that is new to me. It was also my first time reading a pattern. So there is a good side:
 And a bad side:  On the bad side, there are visible holes where I increased. I have to figure out how to avoid that. On the good side, it more or less looks like it is supposed to. All in all, not bad for my first try. I'll just have to figure out where I went wrong. And for next time, I'd make the ties longer, and I won't use scrap yarn (that's the wrong gauge).
There's a baby shower for someone at work coming up. So I thought I'd make them some baby-themed magnets (made from baby-themed scrap book paper from joann's):  I also bought silver metal paint and spray painted an altoid tin. Tonight, I'll use some mod podge and line the inside of the tin with some of the remaining paper. Hope the spray paint works out. Its drying in the garage. The idea for that came from here.
I've had a couple requests for magnets. Maybe its time to figure out how my paypal works.
I finished my second scarf last night: 
This one turned out just how I wanted. I cast on 14 stitches on size 9 circular needles (larger than recommended) using some soft yarn my mom had lying around. She had previously knit something with it, unraveled it, and rolled it back up into a ball, so the yarn still had kinks in it from the previous knit, adding more texture. Its a long skinny scarf, 98" x 3.25" and I did a double seed stitch (K2, P2* all rows). I also made the marble pushpins last night...yay! Yesterday, I returned to the hospital I was born at (SF General) for the first time--the same ward, even. My aunt has advanced ovarian cancer but they have her staying in the maternity ward, which makes things much more cheerful. This is my favorite aunt. We're taking shifts with her over the next week or so following her surgery since she's deaf and doesn't speak much English. I wonder who is taking care of my grandparents. I know this sounds childish, but I often wonder why bad things happen to such good people. God probably had the same logic when s/he decided that all good tasting food has to be bad for you. Afterwards, my cousin and I had Indian pizza at Zante's Pizza--tasty!
What a good idea. I'm going to make marble pushpins too. Its just too bad I don't have my bulletin board up right now. But they will make nice gifts. And coasters! I'm collecting Altoid tins and I'll either cover them with con-tac paper or do something with mod podge over it.
Hanging out with my cousins in Tahoe is always fun--especially since all we do is eat and drink. With inspiration from not martha, I made my very own marble magnets just minutes ago and I'm updating from my laptop in my warm cozy room. I picked up most of these supplies from Michael's: 
It was so easy! Using images from Lucky, here's what I ended up with: 
After some usability testing, my next run of magnets will be from the Williams Sonoma catalog. Now I'm wishing I didn't let my dad throw away my thirty-year collection of National Geographics (got them for $1 in high school!). Also, note the Ginger Altoid tin the magnets are stuck to. One of my coworkers introduced me to them, and I'm addicted! They're incredibly hard to find and I stumbled upon eight tins at the 7-11 near Pier 39. I bought all of them and J thought I was nuts. All those boxes have been distributed to coworkers and I've been searching for more boxes in vain. They're making a killing on ebay, and the Altoid company says they won't be making them again until next September. Bogus! Buy them for me if you find them. I'll paypal you back. Oh yes, shutupyousuck is down because my host moved. |
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