Susie Cupcakes

This is one of the two weekends a year where I have to work on Saturday. For reasons that I don't entirely understand, I do not get another day off during the week, so it ends up being a six-day work week, followed by Sunday, then five more days of work. And this time, I am feeling very fed up and not very school-spirity. As a representative of the school, I have to spend Saturday chatting with people about how special it is, and while intellectually I know it is indeed special, my gut feeling all day was all mumbly and muttered things like, "stupid rich university that couldn't even spring for the customary thank you bookmark, even though I gave a talk to 70 potential donors at 10 am on Saturday morning....grrrr." Okay, so maybe not that mumbly, and maybe I said as such aloud last night during a game of scrabble. But I can't say that to people who are genuinely excited to be visiting their alma mater, or the place where their kids go. That is too evil, even for me.

Anyway. To try to make Sunday at least worthy of the name "weekend," Alex and I took a drive through northwestern Connecticut, stopping in Litchfield. This is a quite Stars Hollow-y town, and I think Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick live there. We did not have a Bacon sighting (which would have been awesome, because I could then insert myself into the 6 degrees game! sort of!) but we did have lunch at kind of a schmancy place where they asked Alex to remove his hat (huh?) but they served very nice food and horseradishy bloody marys, so they are okay. We then went to the historical society and the Litchfield Law School, which was America's first law school. We got to watch a 15 minute video recreating what some of the early law students would have seen and discussed on their way to the law school. It turns out to be slavery, Aaron Burr, and girls. Typical.

On the way home from Litchfield we stopped at a Target and guess what I found!

My long lost dream beverage! Okay, so the situation was a little weird, in that some of the boxes looked like they had literally been through hell and high water, and they were in cases of 8 cans, which is unheard of in my La Croix research, but hooray! I bought 4 cases--2 lime, 1 lemon, and 1 pamplemousse! This should last upwards of one week, at which time I will return to the Torrington Target for another fix.

Labels: la croix, travel, weekend, work

I write to you, dear friends, from the Comfort Inn in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. After a day of driving though rain and fog, we finally decided to stop before the mountain roads got icy. We will get up early tomorrow and try to make it the rest of the way home. We are currently near White Haven (not as nice as it sounds) and about 45 miles south of Scranton. I miss the kitties and would like to be home, but not badly enough to drive for another 6 or 7 hours, given the rate we've been going.

It was a lovely weekend with everyone and very nice to see friends again. I really wish we could have spent more time seeing our favorite people and places, but it just means we'll have to go back soon.

I did it! A month of blogging. Thanks for reading along.

Labels: nablopomo, travel

In real life, Day Seven occured immediately following Day Six, but in recap life it is occurring two weeks later. C'est la vie! Let's get started....

It was our last full day (sniff!). We finally got brave enough to take the Metro.

And you know what? It's very easy to use, just as easy as in New York or Boston. Thumbs up for the Metro. We took it south so we could visit the Catacombs.

Turns out everyone wants to visit the catacombs, but only 200 people are allowed in at a time, due to space reasons, and, I think, freak out-claustrophobia reasons. We happily waited an hour or so for our turn.

It was creepy in the extreme. You go down narrow, steep stairs, then walk for a number of minutes before coming upon this:
It's a reproduction of the isle of Elba or something that a miner made in his free time while down in the tunnel. Some of you know how I feel about certain dolls, puppets, and masks (people surrogates), and this is the building equivalent. Creepy! But not as creepy as, you know, 6 million dead people stacked decoratively.

Those are tibias and femurs. Behind that pile it goes back up to 80 feet deep with all the hip bones, fingers, ribs, etc. And it went on for miles (feet).

Passageway after passageway of bones, each section from a different church. It is a strange burial ground/freak show experience. Some people couldn't get enough of it, and wanted to take some of the magic home.

Busted! But seriously, how do you hide a skull on your person? Third boob?

When we re-emerged, the sun was shining and all was right. We decided to go where cheerful Amelie was filmed, Montmartre.

(Alex labeled that "Fake Train Smile" on Flickr. I normally look like I'm plotting something unpleasant.)

Montmartre is adorable and hilly, with beautiful views of Paris.

And I got to meet my first real French kitty!

This kitty lived on an adorable street, in an adorable house with an adorable garden. Is it possible to be jealous of a cat?

Then, I saw ANOTHER ONE!

It was watching birds! I realize that most people don't take pictures of strange cats when on vacation, but I can't help it. I was especially excited since there are so many kitties in artwork, posters, even grafitti, in Paris, but I had yet to see a live one until that day. Maybe I was starting to miss my own meows a bit.

We walked around the neighborhood, seeing where many artists had lived when they were poor and wild. It was charming. I mean, THIS is a door!


Unfortunatley, we had to leave, though, so we could meet up with our "landlord" and get our deposit back on the apartment. We got our moneys back and went to dinner!

We found a sweet little restaurant on the Ile St. Louis (the one with all the ice cream) and had a fabulous three course dinner.

Do you see that pillar on the far left hand side that looks like a table leg? It's a pepper mill! I thought I had the largest Peugeot pepper mill known to God and man (thanks to Jenna!) but apparently there is a bigger model. I don't think it would fit in a regular home. Maybe you could keep it by the bed to attack burglers in lieu of a baseball bat. Love me some pepper mills.

After dinner we went to take a final boat cruise on the Seine. We got to see the Eiffel Tour all dressed up for evening.


And that is the story of our trip to Paris. It was just about the most perfect honeymoon I could have imagined. Thanks, Alex, for a splendid time. Vive le mariage!

Labels: honeymoon, Paris, travel, vacation

I have spent way more time on planes this year than normal, thanks to a couple of west coast conferences and wedding planning and friend visiting. All of which are delightful reasons to travel. But while I like the anticipation and excitement of travel, I dislike the gross food and tacky shoe shine stations in airports. And I especially dislike people who try to cheat the Southwest boarding system by lining up in NON-numerical order. Sorry, B23, you cannot line up behind A34 and expect to be seated. I do, however, like walking past those people and feeling like a superior rule-follower.

When I'm not smirking, I knit, listen to podcasts, and read. I sort of enjoy the forced "off-line"-ness of air travel. And I'm so glad you can't talk on your cell phone. Don't you hate that horrible period after you've landed, and everyone has unbuckled their seatbelts and is standing, hunched, in the aisles, and there's always some guy on his phone saying, loudly, like, "YEAH, I JUST LANDED. YEAH. YEAH. NO, PUT MOM ON THE PHONE. NO. YEAH. BRING A SANDWICH. [BLAH BLAH BLAH]." And everyone avoids eye contact and the rest of the plane is quiet. Awkward!

But reading is indeed a great part of travel. And in the spirit of Wordnerdy's book reviews, I think I should start putting up at least summaries of the books I read. This may be more for my documentation than your edification, but here goes. I'll start with a couple to try to prevent your (and my) eyes from glazing over.

Buster Midnight's Cafe by Sandra Dallas
This is a book I snagged from Mr. Cupcakes' parents house. It's about three friends from a mining town in Montana who grow up in the 1930s, and one of them becomes a movie star. It's narrated in a bit of a folksy first person style by one of the friends. It's an enjoyable story of how friends and relationships evolve as you age. It actually sounds like a real story you might hear someone tell you, which is not easy to do using period lingo and products.
Points: for educating the reader about the delightful depravity of Montana mining towns.

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
I think I read The Maltese Falcon for a course I took in college called Legal Reelism (geddit?) but that was my only Hammett experience. This book is also about a Montana mining town and its horrifying depravity and criminal activity. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the journalistic/detectivey descriptions of each person are stellar. For example: "He was a man of thirty-four or -five, fairly tall, broad, and heavy without fat. His eyes were large, brown, dull, and set far apart in a long, slightly sallow horse face. It was a humorless face, stolid but somehow not unpleasant." There's so much description packed into each sentence that you need to slow down to really put the image together in your mind. Hammett was created to write screenplays. Also, according to the biography in the back of the book, he was created to meet lots of ladies.
Points: for the narrator killing a couple dozen people without remorse. And they say violence in the media is a problem today!

Labels: books, picky, travel, vacation

It's spring, and baby season is about to begin! There are at least 4 babies to be born among friends in the next four months. Although I am 100% not ready to have a baby myself, I have discovered that I love to knit baby clothes. Tiny! Darling! Quick!

This is a Baby Kimono from a pattern by Julie Cashin. It's all garter stitch, knitted flat, then seamed up along the sides and underarms.

One for Malena and Graham's baby (to come in May) and one from Molly and Kenny's baby (to come in April). I felt Molly's baby do, like, a somersault or karate kick or something and spontaneously shrieked with delight. Babies! Maybe once my damn wedding is out of the way, babies can be taken under consideration. In a few years.

I used an I-cord for the closure, but a ribbon or button can also be used.

Sorry for the gap in posting--I've been travelling a bit. I was in Minneapolis visiting family and friends and doing wedding planning over the Easter weekend. It snowed, of course. I was in Newport, RI Friday and yesterday. That's a super-crazy town, all filled with center-chimney colonials (the 18th century architectural style closest to my heart) and insane summer "cottages" built by Vanderbilts and other people with money to burn. I should probably put cottages in double double quotes (i.e. ""cottages"") because the irony is so great. These are marble palaces with sixteen bedrooms and gold plated faucets, manicured gardens, etc. It's nice to have something to aspire to in my summering practices.

My summering this year will be very exciting, since it will not just be a summer vacation, but a HONEYMOON! As my favorite hobby is obsessively planning vacations in exhaustive detail, causing Mr. Cupcakes to stop responding to me or taking advantage of my spreadsheet of housing comparisons, I have taken the liberty of doing the planning for the 'moon. Can you guess where we're going?

Hints: cheese! wine! chocolate! pastries! guillotines!

Labels: babies, knitting, travel

I can't believe February is already half over, but that means we are closer to spring and may eventually leave this gray world of slush. On Wednesday it snowed, then rained heavily, so there were several inches of standing water underneath the snow and my socks were wet all day. Wet socks are just hateful, right up there with too-tight ponytails and toothaches.

But! Today is sunny (cold, but I'll take it) and Alex and I are going up to Boston to visit our friend Heather. Should be a fun little trip--we both have to work on Monday so it's just going to be an over-nighter. Last weekend I was in Baltimore visiting another friend, Stef, and the weather was also cold but sunny. I really like Charm City; Stef is cute and likes puzzles, the food is great, and the city has an intriguing weirdness to it. This may be because I think of John Waters movies whenever I'm there. I've also been reading a lot of Laura Lippman mysteries and she offers a pretty stark look at what makes Baltimore great and not-so-great.

So, knitting. I've been sewing the blanket squares together, which is slow and not very portable, because it's so large and heavy. So, in addition to the Noro socks, I'm also working on Snicket Socks.

This pattern has a cabled diamond pattern that was pretty slow going until I used Grumperina's cabling without a cable needle tutorial, which saves me a ton of time. The pattern is by a German author, and I think the heel must be a German or European style. I've not seen it before.

It's a short row heel with "double stitches," which are difficult to explain . . . well, there are these instructions from Lana Grossa. They call this heel a "Jojo heel." Ha! Did you guys grow up eating jojo potatoes, which are basically huge fried potato wedges, kind of like steak fries? I did not have them in my homeland (Fargo, ND) but they seemed to be prominent in eastern Minnesota/western Wisconsin. Anyhoo, I will call these heels the Jojo Potato Heel, in honor of the potato goodness.

Have a great weekend! I'm off to Boston, all Johnny-Tremain style.

Labels: Baltimore, Boston, socks, travel

I just got back yesterday from southern California, a quick trip for a great conference. I like having a hotel room to myself (no offense to awesome roomies, such as Mr. Cupcakes) just because you can lie around and watch Law & Order and get room service and generally feel fabulous. I guess except for room service, life at home is not so different. I just really love ordering things and having them show up in your room. Perhaps I should train the cats.

In addition to my general sloth, I enjoyed getting to know the Claremont corner of southern California. Seeing things like this

on January 11 is nothing short of miraculous. Even North Carolina doesn't work that kind of magic.

On my free afternoon, I got in my super-hot rental car (well, a Kia Optima with a scrape on the side) and took some new friends out for a spin. I experienced the wonders of traveling on LA freeways. There was even a huge tire fire that shut down part of the highway. How authentically hellish! The quintessential Cali experience. After only an hour or three, we made it to Malibu.

Malibu is really pretty, with 1960s-era angular houses tumbling over the rocky cliffs. We drove through some of the little neighborhoods and everyone was, like, roller skating and washing their Lexuses (Lexi?) and generally being highly all-American. I can see why some people put up with tire fires in exchange for gorgeous sunset views and warm weather year-round. After Malibu, we drove up Sunset Boulevard (yes, THAT Sunset Boulevard) and cruised through Bel Air, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood. I saw the Hollywood sign, the Capital Records building, the Kodak Theatre, the stars on the walk of fame, the original Frederick's of Hollywood, the palm-lined boulevards of Beverly Hills (90210) and people dressed up as Jedis. It was quantitatively awesome. The only way it could have been better is if Britney herself had appeared and perhaps hit my car.

There is always a dark side, though, as all Jedis know. For example, look what I found the the ladies' room of a middle eastern restaurant:

That is appalling. And environmentally unsound. And your eyes do not deceive: a baby has been placed inside a cleaning bucket next to a bidet.

After witnessing this testament to depravity, I came back to my hotel room to discover this:

Hidden millions in your pants? I tried for, like, 3o seconds to figure out what was happening with this caption but I was scarred with images of toilet paper-wrapped babies and cash stuffed pants and had to turn on some Law & Order and unwind. And a little room service really takes the edge off, you know?

Labels: California, creepy, travel

Happy new year, peeps. 2007 was a little crazy for me (and maybe for some of you too) in ways good and bad and I welcome the new year with some relief. Mr. C and I had a very nice time in the MSP. It snowed constantly and there was nothing better than sitting by the fire, knitting and drinking coffee (AM) and wine (PM).

I also had the chance to produce a flock of penguins, a creation out of the mind of one of my brilliant co-workers. Everyone should make these on any occasion (parties, holidays, funerals, snacktime, etc.) because they are serious crowd pleasers.

This was my first one, so please forgive this penquin's sloppiness. The penguin is an ingenious combination of a large olive given a seam and filled with cream cheese, a smaller olive for a head, a carrot "coin" with a wedge cut out for feet, and the wedge inserted in the face for a nose. The toothpick works as a spine to hold it all together.

Mr. C immediately took the idea and made the world's cutest penquin:

He used a ziplock with the corner cut to neatly apply the cream cheese. (By the by, the cracker is not moldy, but instead a bizarre onion and herb saltine.)

We had a whole herd ready for the holiday (Swedish sausage-making) party. And yes, that is a roasted red pepper scarf. These penguins were beloved by all but eaten by many and then,

There was only one left. Don't worry, he was eaten soon after this picture was taken.

Stay tuned for ACTUAL KNITTING CONTENT!

Labels: holidays, penguins, travel

Hi! I've been spending the month of August with Oops, getting to know my new adopted pony daughter a bit better. Now it's almost September and time to send Oops to college. She's eighteen, you know. Have fun and be careful, baby!

But really, I'm at a conference in Chicago, waiting to check into my room and see if there is a toilet phone. I sincerely hope so. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous so I hope I can get out and enjoy it a little. I believe a yarn store or two might be on the agenda. And I brought my new camera so I hope to capture all the excitement and do one of those super long blog posts that annoy y'all. Stay tuned!

Labels: ponies, travel

I'm back from South Florida, where I had a fabulous time with Angela. We lived it up, Miami-style. You know, sipping mojitos on velvet couches in Coconut Grove...


. . . admiring the local folk art...


. . . looking at crazy tropical plants (this makes bananas, allegedly) . . .


. . . taking in a bit of the local culture . . .


. . . and admiring the miles and miles of turquoise water.

Lovely, lovely. Thanks for all the sun therapy and 90210 episodes, Ang!

Labels: florida, travel