Springtime in Chicago

I don't think there is a finer place to be in the world than sitting on my back porch on a sunny, pleasantly warm spring day. I'm not the only one with this opinion, either. My mother-in-law stopped by yesterday morning for a visit. We sat on the porch sipping tea, nibbling on fresh fruit, and just enjoying the experience. About every 20 minutes she would comment how she needed to get moving along, but that she was having trouble moving off our porch on such a lovely day.

Here's a photo of my completed Inside-Out Socks taken on the porch this weekend.

We had the most fabulous weather this weekend and I took full advantage of it. There was actually little gardening for me to do beyond some minor weeding and pruning the roses. I'll be executing Phase 2 of the landscaping plan this spring (hopefully within the next 2 weeks) so I will not be planting my annual veggies for some time. They'll be going in an entirely new location, which means no soil prep right now, either.

This is the year I make a major change in my gardening. I hope. For the past 3 years, I've been using a small area in the yard directly behind the house for annual veggies. Now that I *seem* to have the side yard bindweed issues in hand (I won't even pretend that they are solved, just "in hand"), I can move on with my master plan to devote that yard to edible gardening. I will get another load of mulch put down first, then have raised beds constructed on top of it all and filled with fresh soil. This way, I will not be disturbing the soil underneath all the weed liner and mulch that likely has bindweed seeds in it.

There's lots of space in that side yard and lots of sun. I'm hoping to have permanent beds for asparagus and blueberries built, and to add a total of 5 more beds for annual veggie rotations. For this spring, if I get just 2 annual beds built I'm sure that will be enough.

I'm glad that there wasn't a lot of yard work to do because I have been incredibly tired this weekend, too. I'm guessing and hoping that it is just allergies. Otherwise, I am clueless as to why I am getting stupidly tired (e.g. tired to the point of not being able to talk coherently) so easily every day. I crashed on Saturday at about 5:00 and napped until 7:30. On Sunday, I made it to 4:30 before laying down for 90 minutes. I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow for my annual check up, and this is one of my discussion points with her.

As for the short Sedona, Arizona vacation, it was...well...OK. We ran into some problems managing our time last Sunday. We were effectively kidnapped by Mark's half-brother for a good chunk of the day and didn't make it up to Sedona until early in the evening.

About this kidnapping comment: that's what it felt like. When you tell someone -- more than once -- that you'll be visiting for brunch, does that mean you're spending the whole day with them? I don't think so. Mark's half-brother did. He asked us to park our rental car so he could take us for "a little tour"-- what we thought meant a tour of his gated community -- then zipped us away for a tour of Surprise, AZ's strip malls and housing developments for retirees and non-retirees. Mark seemed paralyzed at speaking up, so after 90 minutes of "This is the Walgreen's where we get our prescriptions, and that's where they're building an Appleby's" it was up to me to set him straight. I explained that as much as we'd like to spend the day with him, we had thought that we were just meeting for brunch and had reservations in Sedona. We still didn't escape until 3 PM and the traffic on I-17 delayed us further.

All I can say about these gated communities in the Phoenix area is this, "not for me!!!!" I guess this is typical for new communities: to be insulated by gates, golf courses, and strip malls from anything going on in the world. Every house looks nearly the same and every strip mall has the same chains of stores. It would drive me insane. If this is the typical experience of Americans these days, then I can see why we've become so ignorant of what's going on globally.

I guess I should consider myself lucky, too, that Chicago retains some character from bygone days. We can visit a local restaurant that is not like any other restaurant. We can visit local shops that are not like any other shop. And so on. Individuality, what a concept!

So, we only had one day in Sedona. That one day was one of unseasonable weather: cold and wet. Not just rain wet, but icy rain wet. And when we went out for a hike, we got caught in it. By the time we walked back to our B&B (about 2 miles) we were soaked and freezing. That was the end of our hikining in Sedona.

I got several photos during that time, though.

This is typical of the views. Red rocks, green trees, and stormy sky. There are more photos here on my Flickr account.

The next day was sunny and fairly warm, but we had to head out of town right after breakfast so we could make our return flight home. To sum it all up: Phoenix was blech and Sedona was pretty, but not fabulous. It still doesn't beat northern New Mexico as the place that stirs my soul the most.

In the desert

Greetings from Phoenix, Arizona. Mark and I flew in yesterday afternoon and will be spending a few days away from home and the girls (our dogs). For Mark, today is a working day. This trip was precipitated by business for him. Me, I'm just along for the ride right now. Tomorrow we start our mini-vacation as we head north to Sedona.

Phoenix is very flat and very brown. There are mountains ringing the valley where the city is located, but the actual valley itself is topographically bland. The gardener in me is fascinated with the desert vegetation, though. Palo verde trees are just trippy! They have such tiny, needle-like leaves and are green throughout their entire being.

And what is that tree that has such beautiful, purple flowers on it now? For some reason I want to say jacaranda, but I'll have to look it up. At least I'm not seeing streets full of green lawns like we did in Albequerque. Of course, for now we are in the city of Phoenix business district. We'll see if the clever and sustainable desert xeriscaping continues or whether it is replaced by wasteful lawns when we move on through the communities ringing Phoenix tomorrow.

Since the past few days have been full of work, work, work and then last minute packing, I felt the need to catch up on blogging today. Technical difficulties have prevented me from using the Blogger interface so I'm using the email functionality. That means no photos in this post. But of course I don't really have any photos to show at this time. I'd rather not post photos of knitting WIPs, and that's all I have right now.

I am almost done with my Inside-Out socks from the Rockin' Sock Club. I'm about 5 rows away from binding off. It's taken me quite a while to do them since the first sock involved lots of ripping and re-knitting, but the second one is going much faster now.

Socks are usually commuting projects, though. At home and during weekly Stitch 'n Bitch, I've been working on the Lift and Separate wrap cardigan from Big Girl Knits. The back is done, the left front is done, and now I'm working on the right front. I was whipping right through it until last weekend when a combination of allergies, general sleep-deprivation, and work deadlines affected the weekend.

Last Saturday was spent just sleeping or trying to sleep. Every time I got up to attend to some work, I found myself nearly paralyzed with exhaustion. Then I would shuffle back to bed and sleep for another hour. On Sunday, I finally felt refreshed, but I had that deadline for work so I sat down and worked for about 7 hours. Once weekend errands were done, I had maybe one hour of knitting time left before I needed to head off to bed.

It was a busy week at work so there was little time for knitting in the evenings. I've brought the right front of the cardigan with me this weekend, just in case. Even though I will be doing all the driving this weekend, I'm looking forward to getting some prime knitting time in. Between the time at the gate yesterday and the nearly 3 hour flight from Chicago to Phoenix, I completed the short row heel and half the cuff on the Inside Out sock. Ahh, I'm feeling better already!

If there's convenient Internet access over the next couple days I may just post an entry and some photos. Sedona is supposed to be beautiful and I'm hoping to get some really nice shots with my little Canon digital camera.

I must be missing the girls and home already. Although I slept well last night, my dreams all involved our house or the dogs. Maybe they were dreaming about me...

A little taste of Mexico

I've finally uploaded the few photos I have from my Mexico trip to my Flickr account. I didn't take very many photos myself, and the following series was taken by Harriet (thanks!).

Raquel, one of the ladies on the spa trip, grew up in Mexico. One evening, she shared with us a type of fruit that she recalls eating in her youth. Here's Raquel showing us the fruit and how to prepare it for eating.

The fruit is cut open and served up with a spoon, sort of like a soft boiled egg. Raquel described the flavor as "delicious," but it certainly didn't look that way. When it was cut open, it looked sort of lot snot. Snot with lots of chunky boogers in it. You can see it here in my hand.

See how it's sort of viscous and slimy? See those chunks of stuff? Those are the seeds (boogers). I decided that the easiest way to eat the thing was to down it like an oyster. So...

Down the hatch! It actually was delicious. The seeds added a crunchiness that reminded me of noshing on a pomegranate.

I make a habit of trying available local food or culinary specialities whenever I travel, and this is far from the strangest thing I've eaten. (I think the fried caterpillars in Zambia would rate as the strangest.) Wish I could recall the name of the fruit! If you have any idea, leave a note in the comments.

The cruelest month

It's February. Rah, rah. I've often said that February is the cruelest month, and this year I think many others will agree with me.

January is usually the month where we get all the bitter cold weather in Chicago. Then we limp along through February until spring finally starts to make an appearance in March. February may be the shortest month of the year if you just look at the calendar, but the way we experience it is as too many days between us and the thaw.

This year, February has been the bitter cold month and we're not limping through it, we're hunkering down and just praying for it to pass.

Last Monday morning, we found that the pipes in our master bathroom had frozen over night. This has never happened to us in the 5+ years we've lived in this house. I had just returned from a week in Mexico the night before, and it was not quite the homecoming that I wanted. The day I flew back to Chicago from my week-long trip to the lovely spa in Ixtapan de la Sal, the high temperature was 4 Farenheit (that's -16 C...without the windchill).

While I enjoyed my break in central Mexico, I spent most of it infected with the nasty flu that my husband passed to me as a parting gift. So, my vacation wasn't as fun and carefree as it could have been. But, I was in a fairly warm spot for a week. And, I was getting a massage every day. Yeah, it was a rude awakening to come back to the deep freeze.

Random Stuff

• I saw yet another commercial on TV this week that is shamelessly using one of the special songs from my youth. At least GM had the decency to re-record I Melt with You and not use the original version recorded by Modern English.*
• The new Imbolc issue of AntiCraft is out, and while it is a short one Zabet has included the pattern of her (in)famous Snatchel. I'm going to have give it a try, but likely not soon. I have other items to finish first.
• I'm slaving away at the sleeves on Mermaid and hoping to finish it by the end of February. (Maybe that would improve my feelings about this month.) I'm immensely thankful for the Hannah Falkenberg KAL and Amy. I could never have worked the pattern successfully just from the booklet that came in the kit; it's just too confusing. While I love many other Hannah pattern's, I just can't imagine working one without one of Amy's clear, concise spreadsheets.
• My other knitting project (the one for commuting) is socks for Mark. He wanted long, calf-length socks, so I'm working on the Gentleman's Half Hose from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks.

Well, that's enough for now. No photos since my camera seems to be busted. I think the LCD screen was jabbed somehow during one of the numerous hand searches in the Mexico City airport. I'm waiting to see if Mark's theory that letting it sit with the battery out for some time (not sure how long "some time" is) will help. If not, then I'll have to either buy a new camera and send it back to Canon for repair.

*This is actually not the first time I Melt With You has been violated in the name of commerce. My friend Adrienne reminded me that it was used previously in a commercial and that I was outraged. Apparently, it was used in a Burger King commercial.

So pretty

We had two glorious days in Big Sur. Yes, I made the drive and didn't totally break down or kill us (obviously). Driving down to the Big Sur Lodge was pretty difficult for me. When we got to the room, I had to lay down for an hour even though it was only the middle of the afternoon. That night, I crashed at about 8 PM and slept straight through until 7 AM the next morning. All that anxiety around the drive really sucked up a lot of my energy.

But, I did get used to the drive and get a bit better. On our return drive back up north, I barely had a twinge as we approached Bixby Bridge, whereas on the drive down I nearly hyperventilated when I saw it.

Mark took many photos with his much better camera, but I have to wait until we get home to upload them since he forgot to bring his transfer cable.

We went to Esalen on Sunday for massages and a dip in the baths. The natural hot-spring baths are right on the edge of the cliffs, and the view is truly stunning. Massages are given in the same place, and it was an incredible experience to be listening to the surf below you, feel the sea winds, and have such incredible body work at the same time. It also leads to a bit of interesting mind tricks to get totally naked with a bunch of strangers and share a hot tub. But that's another story...Will I sound like a total granola crunching idiot if I say that Esalen was a spiritual experience for me?

Today is our last full day, and we're going off to the Monterey Bay Acquarium and Cannery Row.

Santa Cruz'in

Today we were here

Santa Cruz Wharf on a grey, rainy morning.

And we saw this

Sea lions "bunking" under the wharf.

I was totally delighted by the sea lions under the wharf. I think Mark was pretty bored by it after a few minutes, but I walked around the pier listening for their "barks" and peeking at them.

We also visited a winery tasting room in Felton and got lost trying to get to Bonny Doon winery. Mark's mobile phone signal died, and with it the GPS directions/locator. We were on a little twisty road in a mountain pass in the middle of the redwoods. I guess it would have been pretty cool if I weren't a bit freaked out by the smallness of the road and the fact that we were hugging a mountain. Good practice for Big Sur, which I will attempt to drive to tomorrow.

From the left coast

A quick entry from San Jose, California where I've been attending a conference for last week. Some things that I've been exposed to this week so far...

- Jeffrey Veen (Google)
- David Weinberger
- David Snowden
- The word "innovation" in many different sessions and contexts
- Red bean smoothies with tapioca pearls

Mark is flying in tonight and we're heading to the coast. We'll start out in Santa Cruz then head on to Big Sur. I'm excited and scared that I'll be driving along Highway 1, perched above the rugged Pacific coast line and hugging a mountain. I hope my fear of plunging to my death from a great height doesn't cause my hands to tremble so much on the steering wheel that the fear becomes a reality.

If we survive the drive to Big Sur, we'll stay there for a few days before heading back up to Monterrey, and then back home. I'm also hoping the weather holds out, because it is getting cloudy here and there is a chance of rain almost every day. I don't want to be slogging through a downpour while hiking around Big Sur.

Geez, I sure can find lots to worry about, can't I?

I'm not sure if I'll be blogging, but as I get Internet access I will be uploading photos to my Flickr account.

Now, on to lunch and final sessions of the conference!