Bite Update 2010: Buy Stock in Benedryl

So remember when I said something bit me a few mornings ago, while I was on the computer? Yeah? Well take a looksee 2 days later.

I just applied some topical benedryl gel, since the antihistamines are not on the agenda right now. Maybe before bedtime.

So ask me again why I'm not really into camping and being "outdoorsy" go ahead, ask.

Bird food and fish food and yarn for me

After The Kid fed the birds in the backyard this morning, we went for a nice walk down by the water for breakfast. The Kid is like Snow White, the birds follow him everywhere.

But when my mother pulled a loaf of bread out of her bag after breakfast to feed the fish and the birds at the park ... it was crazy! The kid pointed out the bird apartment building. However when I tried to take a picture, only a few residents remained.


We gathered up our beach belongings and drove back to the old side of the island. Winward. We had to go to the Marine Corps Exchange first ... for more bird food for the backyard. The Kid got a toy out of it, natch spoiling granny ... and granny got a floatation device. hmm.

Then we drove to Kailua and we got knitting needles for Mom so I can reteach her the basics, and I got some *cough* yarn. But Mom got more stuff than me!! She claims the novelty yarn is for her handmade leis. I say ... she's just hoarding. hahaha. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

After that we went fishing at their old favorite spot, and this time we had success!


I had success as well at backing out my latest lace fiasco and making tracks to make up for lost time (or rows in this case). I don't fish. I can, I mean, I just ... well, sitting there waiting is not really a good sport for me. I can't even watch t.v. without something in my hands... But I didn't want to be off-site either, seeing how neither one of those two can sufficiently swim. Did I mention they are both accident prone?

Clock watching (because that is what I do apparently this is what I do in leisure or in occupation) I told them to pack it up so we could get some Kailua beach time. (fishing spot is across the st.)

After Lo's trip I was very excited about returning. She reminded me just how beautiful that place is, what a beach town beach it is. I have such great memories of this place, and it is so gorgeous and mellow. I have a picture of the Kid in essentially the same spot for our past 3 trips. So I had him take 1 more ...

an AMAZE-ING time in progress

Yesterday the weather was iffy. I guess that is how it is in the tropics, are we going to get any sun, a lot of rain, will it be too windy to fish?

The Kid said we should go do the Pineapple Maze and see if we could find all the clues this time. (Since last time we went, we go 6/8, due to rain.) Mom and I thought it was a perfect plan since it was Central and maybe the wind would be a little more forgiving.


It was a fun activity. We rode the "Dole" train and the Kid danced in his seat to the Hawaiin music. We let him take pictures of the different varieties of pineapple and bought some random Pineappleish-overpricey snacks at the gift shop. We mastered the maze getting 8/8 in 58 minutes. Mom and The Kid were so fast we were often separated because I couldn't keep up. Damn, outpaced by the old lady and The Kid.

Enough sunshine and time after lunch at home, we went back out to the local beach and the 3 of us swam. Mom even chatted up the lifeguard.




The Kid and I talked about the power of the ocean when we were doing evening sticker book. He said it gave him energy.

I have to say he's right.

Vitamin D and Salt Water prescribed.

When you tell people you're going to Hawaii, the immediate image is of bright blue watered snorkeling trips to the beach. Mai tais at sunsets and floral wraps and flip flops.

Usually this is near the truth, though I prefer wine to maitais. However weather.com predicted cloudy windy weather, and SFGate (aka sfhate) was predicting 10 days of rain.

Well, we've had something in between, but thankfully the tropics are forgiving, and even with wind and rain, it's lovely.

Every day at 7:30 am and pre-dinner post work The Kid and The Colonel feed the birds in the backyard. The colonel has been in training downtown so he has made the Kid in charge of morning feedings to his great delight.

Yesterday Mom drove us to a little beach on base where we were determined to hang out till it got too cold. Between sandcastles, and sprinkles, The Kid and I ventured into the water. "warm" but not as warm as we've had it here before. There were destroyers passing through the estuary to the harbor there were planes from the airport landing and jets practicing take off.

The kid practiced swimming for me and we sat together in the water watching it all as the sun broke through, every now and again.

I felt refreshed. It wasn't postcard weather, but I felt literally lighter, happier from being in the sun and the water. We were both browner in a short amount of time and laughing a lot easier.

Wind and no sun it won't matter, I think that convinced us we'll find another day down at the beach.

Knitting Thwarted

Knitting can be challenging on any holiday, when you're not say, just locked in a logcabin alone. But there is always some downtime and I figured well, 5 hours on a plane, I had some knitting time.

Lets just say somewhere in Row 5, on the second pattern repeat, my Knitting powers failed. I was off count, I couldn't back out without making more mistakes and, I couldn't recognize a row since the same row is used over and over again. I spent the rest of the trip trying to back it out and compensate and detangle. I decided to watch half of New Moon. (Wow that's a lot of teenage angst. Underclothed teenage werewolves make me uncomfortable.)

I love when Knitting is relaxing like this. .

Well, fine I'll work on it later that night. We take the kid to feed bread to the big fish down the road, and then we take him to a pier to go fishing. After cleaning up we go downtown and my parents take The Kid to the Lego Store.

By the time we finish dinner The Kid and I are both sleeping in our dishes. Determined that I am, after tucking him in, I stay up with my Mom and have a glass of wine to work out the knitting.

By 11pm, I've managed to recover, AND to make a similar mistake on a different row. So really, I didn't progress more than a few rows.

I wanted to cry.

I opted to sleep.

Why didn't I bring a mindless knitting project incase of moments like this? Why didn't I pack a pair of size 6 needles since the project isn't really opening up like it should anyhow? Because I didn't want to pack too much. (though I bought a pair of unnecessary jeans yesterday ...)

So at midnight, I channeled my anxiety and went to sleep to wake up every hour, with random "where am I? what happened to my knitting? did henry just fall out of the bed?" dreams and dealings.

Then The Kid woke up at 5am. and pet my hair till 5:30am and ran out into the livingroom to play and read.

In the back of my mind, I just want to sit with my sparkly, somewhat scratchy, skinny, annoying ass yarn. But it will have to be after some Beach time with The Kid. Cleaning with Mom and prepping and cooking for 10. Mom and Dad had an unexpected dinner party. But it will work out, nice people, simple dinner that Dad requested anyways and The Kid would have his beach in the a.m.

Ta Da!

Aloha, now let me sleep ...

I would like to say that once The Man got us to the security line at the airport I stopped my whining. Alas, I would be lying. But a SME is always perfecting their craft.

Once I let go of the dirty that was the unfound camera battery charger and the bad iPod loading experience, The Kid and I embraced the airport. We got our water, some extra gum and looked at the sad sandwiches in our section.

We didn't push our way onto the plane w/the other cattle we didn't have much so settling in was easy.

The Kid was initially happy with snacks, a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book and lego minifigures.




But alas we had problems with the ipod, though all the things appeared on the menu if we tried to play/select wouldn't play. The Kid was frustrated and sad, but a good sport in general. I'll try to take it to the Apple store in Honolulu to see if they have any recommendations. I'll try to research how to create a secondary profile for an already registered User. Seems simple, but that takes time ...

My parents greeted us and unfortunately we couldn't go to the Thai Temple for our traditional post flight lunch. They were closed for the winter. However we got a fantastic traditional Mom lunch, with lots of my favorite stir-fried peasant vegetables and crispy meats.

Ahh. Now I just need to practice napping.

Last Minute Me

The Kid and I are leaving for Hawaii tomorrow morning to see Khun Yai and Grampa. I checked with the boss to see if timing would be okay months in advance, double-checked with The Man Friend and bought tickets before the Spring Breakers drove the prices up any higher.

My plans always start off alright.

Packing list in excel was started two weeks ago, with minor adjustments daily. The orange duffle was pre-packed 2 days ago, and I just had a few things to add and a few things to take away.

Friends of ours took The Kid for the day after soccer, and I pulled out all his favorite things and was feeling pretty good.

Now all I needed to do was copy the audio books to the computer and upload them to my ipod, which was now going to become The Kid's and move files from the man's ipod and put them on there and maybe download a few "cool things", like Batman episodes and Michael Jackson's greatest hits.

Well, Harry Potter is going to make me scream, since just trying to get the discs loaded using windows media player (this is where The Man just shakes his head, when I say I can move the files around easier.) is recognizing more than 2 discs as disc 1 and we are now having overwriting issues. And I am very crazy, because how much would it burn to have 2 chunks of the same part of the book and miss one? It would burn like a wildfire it would.

Well I think I circumvented things with renaming folders the first book, but the second book is quite uncooperative.

Man friend waits impatiently for me to finish this task (which must be finished tonight, simply because it's war now.) So he can see how he can work around iTunes to use my old Ipod as The Kids.

Gosh this is boring, but I think my friends sans Mlouis are grateful that I have not called them all to bore them to tears with this misadventure.

Now I could've done this all last week, or this week, but I had important things to do like knit, drink wine and eat and sometimes all three at once (with clean hands.)

I have a headache now, and I'm definitely going to forget something. Let you know later.

Calgon take me away.

Fat Girl Fridays that last a week ... and how to make it better.

Last week Friday, I was feeling mopey and tired and impatient. I know these are phases and one must focus on the positive and not give into the general malaise that is the moody petulant teenager within.

However by Sunday when I was feeling my pettiness grow unreasonably, and I was fighting myself to sleep on Monday, and Tuesday I wore a skirt simply because I didn't like the way that pants felt on me -- I knew I was in trouble. Fat Girl Friday was showing it's chronic tendancies.

Well hell if I'm going to waste anymore time on life-downers. I already work, don't spend enough time doing things I really enjoy with people I genuinely care about. I'm a simple girl, I got a lot of things that make me happy. So FOCUS:

1. My kid did HELLA good on his progress report with his parent teacher conference this week and even though he may need penmanship lessons for life, something inside his brain is clicking and working and he's happy and still looks to hold my hand on the sidewalk.

2. Man-friend still tolerates my ass, even when I am having extended, needy, Fat Girl Fridays, and demand to know why he isn't nicer to me. He'll even opt to make me a snack when I'm whining about frogging knitting projects. I forgive him for drying my fat girl clothes -- which will definitely not fit proper now.

3. Yarn. Oh savior thank you. New things, better things, happy, lighter and even sparkly things. 2010 will be the spring and summer of lace. I already have two shawls started. We'll experiment with more cottons and maybe I'll get crazy style and try a silk cotton blend. ooo. Kappy might just teach me to read a chart. Better than meditation my favorite stationary exercise is always with Yarn.

4. Happy Dinners with the cool kids. I love eating duh. But I love eating in good company. Whether it's birthday dinners with the Triad crew or potlucking at Mlouis and planning the next "Chicken Night" with Wingman. The prospect of the next happy meal is dreamy. I like to eat Ramen with Pearlcream or The Boys and Roast big fat crispy organic chickens and rendered pork belly with my sister. Mmm food.

5. Things to come! This encompasses all of the above, and includes things near, and far. Upcoming events like:

Spring Break in Hawaii with The Kid visiting my own H.A.A.M. (hard ass asian mom) and The Colonel! It's a quick trip, but it will be lovely I already know.

The Triad has TWO birthday dinners it's planning for next month AND El Diablo and I are looking forward to our next spontaneous snack night. (kind of like happy hour, but with drinks optional for the teetotalers.)

Playdates with HM and Pearlcream -- doing nothing or anything we want by curfew.

The Colorado Cousins are coming for some California Summer Vacation and to visit with Dad et al East Bayers. I haven't seen them in 3 years. So it will be neat to get together and see our kids get together.

Finishing the planning on Family Vacation with The Boys. If we stick to our August Dates, NYC is looking like a no-go and we are back to the Pacific Northwest Road Trip. Perhaps this is why I keep dreaming about station wagons.

Anyhow, after reading Crazy Aunt Purl today I realized that the funky doesn't need to be THAT funky. I encourage you all to get out and about. Knit, run, read, pet your cat (or your yarn) for a few mins. Look at someone you're thankful in all your Hallmark card glory and get back to it. Really, not only could it be worse, it's not THAT bad ... yet.

Knitting Disappointments and Bad Pie.

Things started off well this weekend. My daily lunch and evening knitting progress was getting me somewhere on at least 3 of 4 ongoing projects I had. I was sure I would be able to complete 3 of them this weekend. Start a new one, and make some tracks on the baby blanket from hell.

I wish I could be happy with the fact that the Destroyed Cowl looks more Cowl than Destroyed with my "visible" Kitchener seam (instead of join). I wish I could be happy that I finished my first pair of handwarmers in the round, and hey! they even look matchy-ish!

Alas No!!!! BOOOOO!

My Infinity Scarf is more a Mopey Moebius, or Twisted Sister since it's too twisted to even be a Moebius. Dear God, such pretty yarn wasted. I'll give it to the Goodwill. Maybe someone more good and willing can put up with it, and if it goes in the bin, at least it's the bin of good will (haha get it?)

But even that I'm okay with, since that pattern has been completed before. It is the pie cowl. Again I feel like I'm constantly haunted by Pie. Crappy Pie Crust all my life. Misunderstanding all Pie metaphors in the American English Idiom dictionary. Forced to pretend I like any pie w/o whipped cream and feeling vilified for not liking fruit pie enough.

Where was I? Oh yes, Pie Cowl. A super cute pattern from Ginny U. @ Urban Knitting Studio. I went it to buy needles (isn't that how it always starts) and then I saw her beautiful cowl and it's unique bind (kinda like a pilsbury crescent roll, but so much jauntier. She selected these beautiful rusts and browns, exclaimed she just finished the pattern and said ... "super easy! super fast! two yarns together knit like a quick chunky!"

"SHUT UP?!?" I say, "WHICH YARN?" I say.

Selecting some lovely colors if I might say, I go home satisfied. Let's just say, I think my basic math sucks, you know stuff like ... counting. The first time, I thought I had at least figured out what I did wrong on row 25 / 39. I was pleased. I figure, oh heck, I can frog this and get back here in no time. I know I can do it now.

WRONG, again. *sigh.

I Knit and W&T dutifully. I get to row 25 and things seem to go well ... yay!

I begin knitting row 27 and ... uh oh. not so good.

And now I have been extra salty for 2 days. I really need to take up some kind of cardio that doesn't involve anxiety.

I will give Pie one last go. But I'm also okay with frogging it and not starting again. Not trying to conquer it. The yarn is beautiful so it will find another way.

And I just found out that Helen is closing Urban Knitting Studio at the end of the month. She is off on her next adventure and project in life. I wish her good luck, for all her kindness and laughter she's shared with me. But I'm mourning more than just my pie now...

Hungry Girl goes Chomp Chomp

I think I'm going to be one of those people where Hungry beats out Lazy. I will unfortunately not be one of those girls that goes "thin" after getting invisaligns in.

I have managed to eat even though I wear my Invisaligns most of the time. I think about food a lot. Is it worth it? I tell myself it's okay to eat my lunch at 9:30 or 10:30 and then I end up snacking around 2. I'm constantly working on my eating/timing strategy.

However I find I'm getting pretty fast at taking these puppies out, even a brand new set of trays.

The time consuming thing ... is the post eating cleaning. OMG! I look like a hobo going into the bathroom, armed with floss, brush, toothpaste, industrial sized flouride rinse. Teeth brushing in work bathroom is a little ick nast as well. I will have to increase my Purell stock.

shudder I just put some on my hands just thinking about the women's bathroom.

Okay that's crazy talk too.

LAY-ZEE ME is going to keep the eating going, the belly a growing and hopefully somewheres in there, my teeth will straighten up a bit.

ps: My love of the almond has faded when I realized it requires TWICE as much brushing before putting on the trays.

More things I wanna do

I was visiting Knitting Daily the other day, and they had a blog feature that led to a link that led to a link and now I'm obsessing ...

Furoshiki gift wrapping from RecycleNow on Vimeo.

It looks fun and easy. Though I'm sure once I give it a go, it won't be so fun and easy for me.

Oh and the fabric! Love it.

I blame mlouis' influence on his travels and sparkling commentary on all things Japan.

Gluttony vs. Sloth

WTF moment ... again. When it was ventured by my hygenist and dentist I could try Invisalign to deal with my crowded bottom teeth. I was nervous. I thought about pulled teeth, pain, and of course, hunger.

I don't do hunger so well.

Anyways after being assured that they wouldn't need to do any teeth removal, I would still be able to eat what I wanted to, (just have to be more dilligent about brushing afterwards) and then NormaJean said, you'd be surprised how many people lose weight wearing them. I thought shucks, why not.

SO VAIN! I KNOW! I'm embarassed. But I figured this would be my best chance at flossing like a normal human being. It also completely helped that my insurace covers a majority of it as well. And let's face it, this may be my only chance at being thinner without trying too hard.

So here I am ... with these weird bumpy bonder things on my teeth coated in plastic trays that make me feel like i'm drooling all the time. And truthfully, it's tedious stuff taking them out, brushing, brushing them, rinsing, putting them back in. I practically carry half a dental office into the bathroom w/me at work during lunch time.

But I've also been really, really hungry. I realize JUST how much sport snacking I do. Stressed about finishing something in time? I snack. Bored because I'd rather be knitting? I snack.

I kind of knew I am this way, since I notice I'm not nearly as hungry or hungry as often during the weekend. Go Figure.

So the question is this. What will win out? Gluttony or Sloth. My laziness to have to go through that cleaning ritual everytime I want to have a crunchy snack, let alone have a cup of tea or coffee. OR do I break down in despair and hunger and learn how to clean my teeth and trays super speedy-like and be pleasingly plump BUT with straighter teeth a little longer?

(I really will do the cleansing ritual, because the thought of "coated teeth" or sealed in sugars eroding my enamel, gives me the heebies in an irrational way.)

After all innovation was born from laziness.

Talking About Fatigue

So I need to tell you I'm running on fumes, fumes I tell you. The rundown is like this -- yesterday I had a second party for The Kid. It was our family this time. This meant a lot of cooking and cleaning. More cooking and less cleaning than the kid party. Hey, they are family! They KNOW how we really live, why fight it?

Now this happens after my dear father was admitted to hospital this week. He is home now, thankfully (Prognosis still outstanding) So my father again has mastered the ability to make me fret! And he can't even ground me anymore!!

This is also after our sink went out! Which My fabulous man/friend/room-mate bff first took apart on Friday and had working. Then upon Saturday morning breakfast failure, came home after a long hard day's work and completely replaced the faucet.

Saturday I went with Pearlcream and Shing to the Stitches West Market ... SO MUCH FUN, but so exhausting.

I'll have to follow up with a post on that later. I'll start by saying, Shing should never be left alone in one of those and I should pay Ms. Pearlcream some service charge for everytime I ask her what yarn color I should choose.

Must go finish being exhausted now.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Today is 1 March. The 2010 Winter Olympics and Knitting Olympics are completed. Finished. Ovah.

And Stacy's Cowl remains suspended at the top of the slope, waiting to complete it's final runs. The final row. The kitchener join.

Seriously, I know if I just stopped, took the time and applied myself I could've done it. (Like posting photos of The Kid's Valentine's, President's Day, Lunar New Year, Black History Month Party, or mailing shit to France AND Marin)

I also know I could've told you all I did it and bullshitted about how, you all (twos of you) would have to wait for final photos. And if those took weeks to post no one would be surprised because i'm infamously slow with things like that.

But then I would be a liar, liar and my pants would be aflame. I don't know maybe it's unethical to me only because it has to do with knitting. Like if I were talking about trying a recipe or finishing a home project... I would lie ... just to get you off my back. But knitting is kind of sacred no?

And I would lie to have that naked knitting man olympian medalion image as if I earned it. I could even buy a naked knitting man t-shirt and get a laugh or two ...

Failure is not complete. And my pants aren't on fire.