6 Sea Cucumbers are the Limit.

There's a reason why no one travels to St. Thomas or most of the Caribbean in the middle of summer. If it's hot in NYC, why on earth would you go to a place that's even hotter??? But then again, my first venture to Vegas was a super hot Labor Day Weekend. It was still summer in Vegas and there was just too many people. But, I digress.

NYC had a super cool summer, not that anyone was complaining. Except for the fact that I was leaving behind beautiful weather to visit an island drenched in sun and humidity. The random sun showers only provided more moisture in an already sticky environment. Not to mention that 2 hours of Caribbean sun was the same as 1 day of North American Sun. Yes, all signs pointed to return home, but there I was.

So even though the hotel room was the coldest place on the island, where did we end up? At the beach! On a boat! Walking through these weird trails that twisted in and out of these huge rock formations, including the space known as the Cathedral. The water was incredibly clear, but as a snorkeler commented, after your 5th Sea Cucumber, the thrill of looking at marine life is long gone. Clearly, no one in our crew was going to be the next Jacques Cousteau.

I also had a little lesson in Painkillers. After staying in the sun all morning, it probably isn't the best idea to hydrate with painkillers. The splash of citrus juice may be enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, but the rum used is a higher proof and in an hour, we were on a speed boat going all loopy. It's a miracle that when we left the British Virgin Islands to return to US soil, the Customs Officers still welcomed us with open arms. I'd like to say that I've learned a great deal of French while spending the day with my now "new" family additions, but all I can say is that Caribbean Rum pretty much stole the rest of our memories.

And as it turns out, all the photos of me on this trip? They're in everyone else's camera.

Landing in St. Thomas

Having never ventured to the Virgin Islands, I didn't really expect anything except that I was told it was humid and there were sunshowers to be expected. A few things I learned as I left the airport to go to the hotel.

The weather? Oppressively hot. At around 90 degrees with about 85-90% humidity, there's no way around it. The wind is warm and sporadic and you're always sweating as you try to acclimate to the heat. The water? Also 85 degrees year round. It's like taking a tepid bath or going to a neighborhood pool with the distinct feeling that all the kids peed into it at once. However, the water is as clear and beautiful as all the photos make it seem. It doesn't get any bluer and turquoise than this, I suspect.

The people? Amazingly nice. Everyone is accommodating, friendly, making sure your experience is pleasant whether it's your taxi driver, the hotel receptionist or a local who realizes that you've lost your way even if you hadn't realized it yet.

The sandy beaches are impressively clean, the sand is very fine and soft with the water as clear and blue as all the pictures depict it to be. But in all this perfection and beauty, there was no surprise that I'd have to make sure my toe wouldn't be bit by an iguana or three.

Cape Fog. Dead Sharks.

I veered off course for awhile. I blame the fact that I got lost into a huge pile of needles and yarn and only just recently started to regain space into my life.

And since the weather has been so great (doesn't everyone love perpetual gray skies?) I did what every other sane person would do, headed to Cape Cod and survey the beaches. The good news is that since the weather really hasn't been summery, there was little traffic heading up to Boston and even heading to Cape Cod. The bad news being that it was cold and we had gray skies some of the time, even rain.

The trip was uneventful, as the most interesting thing that really happened all weekend was that I found a seagull pecking at a dead baby shark that washed up on shore. Yes that's a piece of his jaw, totally picked clean.
No, I did not pick it up to bring home with me. Because no matter what, I'm still a girl and when I see things like that, my first instinct is to make sure none of that is remotely near me. What I did think about was that 10 minutes before I spotted this dead shark, my feet were in the water and so I now had molecules of the decomposing body on my skin.

I am trying to understand why everyone loves nature, but it seems that every time I venture out into the world, I get a sign to run the other way.

Easter . . . Deer?

Having absolutely no interesting plans for Easter, I agreed to go spend the weekend at the Poconos, a brief mingling with nature outside of Central Park. It wasn't a bad idea, I mean I suppose it isn't a great thing when someone asks, don't you want to go out for some fresh air and see nature, and your respond with, sure, that's when I visit Central Park. There are ducks, bees, birds, bugs, grass and trees.

So I ventured outside the comforting boundaries of NYC into the woodsy area of the Poconos. Most of the weekend was spent in drizzling, drabby rain, leaving us with little to do but read, watch tv and knit. The latter I did a lot of. But I've learned one important difference between "city" folk and quite possibly the "rest of universe."

Deer = pests with 4 legs, a body big enough to stop a car and damage it severely and carries ticks. Most people do anything they can to discourage deer from entering their property as they are carriers of the lyme disease and will eat your garden in minutes. For city people, they're friends. They buy things like deer food and salt licks to entice the deer onto their property so they can admire it.


Yes....I was THAT close!

When Everything goes TERRIBLY wrong.

As a warning, if you are not a knitter, you will neither appreciate nor understand the tragedy below:

I've been knitting long enough to know that like road trip, even the best planned ones go awry. I'm a big fan of spontaneous side trips and taking the road less traveled. That being said, I do like to spend a few minutes to look at a map and orient myself with the world around me. So I finally decided to hop on the bandwagon to knit the Gathered Scarf that's been repeatedly knitted all around Ravelry. What could be so hard about that? There's garter (all knits) and sections of stockinette (knits and purls) and you switch off needles with each section. The needles are pretty distinct, mine have the special bonus of being different colors as well. :) There are no words to describe how everything quickly spiraled out of control.

It started, innocently enough with a different project. The My So Called Scarf in some beautifully dyed orchard yarn. 540 yards of sock yarn in beautiful hues of red, green, creams and just a hint of brown. All the colors you expect to see in an apple orchard. Hours and days of knitting later, I realized that I ran out of yarn. And the dyer was no longer dyeing yarn so I couldn't get more. But it was so perfect. I searched for eons for anyone who dyed a similiar colorway and found it.

She agreed to dye it on whatever yarn I'd like that she had in stock. So I chose shokay orient. A great blend of bamboo (satisfying my inner panda) and yak (time to figure out why everyone thinks this is amazing stuff). It arrived in a beautiful swirl of red and green. And I started to knit the My So Called Scarf pattern- only it resulted in really bad pooling and I just couldn't fix it no matter how many how many stitches I casted on or the needles I used. So I spoke to Kristin from Green Mountain Fibers and she volunteered graciously to redye the yarn. It got lost in the mail. I think Santa must have taken it since I mailed it to her around Christmas Eve and she didn't receive it until the end of January, 1 month later.

At this point, I really should've listened to fate, the knitting fairies, all beings mystic and supernatural. But I didn't. Once I received the re-dyed yarn, all I kept thinking about was what pattern to use it for. And I finally found a pattern, only I couldn't cast on the right number of stitches. I know how to count to 30, but apparently when yarn and needles are involved, not so much. Then my needles were small, so I went up a couple of sizes. Then it was too big. By the time I found the goldlilocks of knitting needles, I carefully casted on. Except as I did the first row of knit stitches, I realized I was off, YET AGAIN. By the end of the evening I had managed 3 rows of garter stitch and then just gave up.

There's nowhere to go after garter stitch. This isn't like casting on 300 stitches of lace and then going ok that's it, all I want is to do some simple garter or stockinette. Or if you used sock needles to get through a huge part of a sock, you could just go find larger needles and work on a simpler project. I was using big needles, a beautifully soft yarn and could not knit. The only lesson I've learned is that sometimes the yarn is a little hexed and there's just no way around it, but what do I care? I finally have 3 rows of garter stitch knitted.


Edited: 5/1/09 Project has been frogged and is waiting to become something else. Some days you really just can't win!

Drowning in Yarn

I'm still drowning in yarn. This is ridiculous, mostly because I just started knitting last year and only really actively acquired a stash since the summer of 2008.

And it's not like I've been neglecting my knitting. I've BEEN knitting, it goes with me everywhere. Movies, cocktails, restaurants, coffee, errands, work, car rides, subways. I mean if my hands are free and there's nothing else to do, I knit. It's also a great way to avoid current events. Like the lady who had octuplets bringing her total to 14? Yes, there's socio-economic responsibility for you. And then they offered her a porn deal? Who can you really hate more? Her? Or the people who are willing to pay to know all this info about her?

I didn't know about her until a few days after everyone else. I'm glad I didn't. It's zen meditation for the soul. At least when your world is reduced to knits, purls, cast on and bind off, you don't have to worry about the crazies or the lies, manipulations, stories that people weave to save themselves from public scrutiny and humiliation. I'm nearly 30 days into a yarn diet and it's working out. It's been a difficult road, but when you're faced with these skeins and the limitless possibilities of what you can do with them, it's hard to say no.



Top Row: Squoosh Silk Lace in Sapphire,
Bottom Row: Sundara Silk Lace in Granite Falls.

Happy New Year?

My 2009 started without firecrackers, noisemakers or champagne. I missed the ball drop on tv by a few minutes and if that's any indication for the rest of the year, then it's going to go by really fast. I'm thankful for online banking which takes care of my bills promptly and assuredly, without which I'll still be signing my checks 2008 or 2010. Just every year but 2009.

I don't know whether resolutions are really effective. For the most part, mine seem to revolve around the concept that life's too short to be bogged down by the little details and banalities that can slow you down. Though, more importantly, it's also a time where I've realized that I need to face the fact that I've got a growing stash of yarn that's going to bury me alive. It's probably not as bad as some and yet worse than others, but it seems that I've become one of those people end up having more yarn than they know what to do with. I will not become that person. Mostly because I love my stash. I don't want it to sit there and stare at me in its pretty twisted hanks. And the knowledge that if I sold everything, I'd have enough for a 15 day cruise around the Greek Isles is sobering enough to realize something must be done.

They're all going to be projects one way or the other and hopefully by 2010, I'll own a tiny shoebox or two of yarn and a lot of pretty items.