Tennis anyone?

 

     Last week my husband insisted that I go out to the desert and enjoy a few days at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament. If you’re not familiar, it’s considered the “fifth slam” and draws all the top players to one of the largest stadiums and events in the world. We’ve been a few times, but since we took our son last year and he wasn’t so into it, my DH thought I should just go by myself and have a good time. Which I did. The plan was go to the day session on Thursday, and then on the way back spend a day at Glen Ivy Hot Springs in Corona, which I’ve been wanting to go to forever. They are famous for their mud baths. Anyway, the draw on Thursday turned out to be pretty weak, hardly anyone I recognized and a lot of qualifiers and wild cards. Don’t get me wrong, these can be great matches. I remember going to the qualifying rounds at the US Open years ago and it was great. It was the first round though, and there was a definite lack of enthusiasm around the grounds. The first place I headed was the practice courts to watch one of my all time favorites Martina Hingis getting ready for her doubles match. She looked in really great shape, so much that I wished she would start playing singles again (fat chance). The over to the match of the day which was the return of Mardy Fish playing fellow American Ryan Harrison. I was hard to tell who was the underdog, as Mardy was once a top player but has 11 years on his opponent. It was a really good match and Mardy almost pulled off taking the second set, but Harrison prevailed. It was nice to see him play well but he ended up falling in the next round. Then I headed over to stadium 2 to watch Hingis and Mirza win their match. General admission in this court can get you really close to the action if you can find a seat. I stayed for bits of a few more underwhelming matches before calling it a day. I had been there since noon and had almost burst into flames, but the evening was really nice. I decided then that I would have to come back for the night session the next day to see Serena Williams make her return to the tournament after 14 years away.
   
     I got to the tennis garden as soon as they let the night session in at 4:30 and watched Nadal play doubles. Most of the top players are playing doubles here and draw huge crowds. Then I checked out the practice court schedule. Federer. There was a bit of a line but I finally got up there, one court away from where he was hitting. For tennis fans, he is god. Not a god or the god, just god. After he was done he was sitting around talking to his team and the crowd near the fence started cheering for him to come over. A girl in front of me yelled “yay Roger, the way you sit in that chair!” and we all cracked up, because I think everyone would have stayed around another hour just to behold him. He finally went over and spend a long time signing autographs and taking photos, so I got as close as I could to his highness.

     

     Then I bounced around a few matches before discovering the wonderful lounge chairs in front of the 3 screens showing the matches going on. I thought this would be a great place to park it while waiting for the night match. The life. Then I grabbed  glass of Pinot and headed up to the major nosebleed seats. Now I have not always been a major Serena fan, but I’ve always enjoyed watching her play. Her entrance, though, and the reception she got was really something special. There was a standing ovation that just kept going on and she was clearly very moved by it. And then there was the match with Niculescu, which was surprisingly competitive. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her play, but it was close and very entertaining at times. Serena ended up winning in a tight 2 sets and the crowd was of course pulling for her all the way, but really showing some love to Nuculescu for some phenomenal shot-making. There was a salute to heroes afterward honoring military and first responders. I stayed for a few games of the Kyrgios/Kudla match, but it was late and I had to drive back to LA that night.
   

     I really feel like I learned how to do Indian Wells this time - here’s a few tips:
*Check the order of play online to see which day and session to go to
*Buy tickets online
*Plan which matches you’re going to hit
*Bring snacks, an empty water bottle, sunblock and a hat, and a seat cushion if you’re in the grandstand seats on Stadium 1. If you’re going to a night session, check the weather because it can get cold.
*Get there early to park/walk/get through bag check/buy a draw sheet/hit the head/fill your water bottle
*Check the practice court schedule and spend some time there
*Try to get a seat where the sun isn’t on you the whole time (it sets in back of the mountains)
*If you’re pooped, plop yourself down in front on the jumbo screens, grab cocktail and chillax.
     This is a very chill tournament, so if you’re in Socal you should definitely check it out. Meantime, I’ve been keeping up with the action on Tennis channel and ESPN. Serena, Roger, Djoko and Murray still all in there.

On Wednesday my back finally felt well enough for yoga so I took Dice Iida-Klein's class at Yoga Glo. I had taken from him before and knew he was kind of athletic, so I took the one hour Level 2. It was an interesting Vinyasa flow where something is added on each time. I think we did about 6 cycles and boy it was killer. He is known for his arm balances and handstands and he threw one in on the mat after all that, but there was no way I was trying it at that point. I was just happy to have made it through the class. Later I had some wrist pain that was probably from not planting my hand down firmly enough, but luckily it was gone by the next day. If a teacher is always getting on you to plant your index finger joint down, that's the reason. 

     I finally completed the roman shade for my bathroom, and it looks really cute. It was so labor intensive and took so much time and table space that I'm not sure I'd do it again. There's a store around the corner form me called Fabric Planet that has a great selection of fabric remnants and trim and also does curtains and alterations. I recently ordered some ottoman cushions from Lowe's to match the chair cushions on my patio furniture, but they are a few inches too long. Knowing how I am with projects like this and wanting to actually use them this year, I think bringing them over there might be a good idea.

     I started 2 new books. The one I'm reading is The Bat by Jo Nesbo.

It's the first in the Harry Hole series. I read The Snowman a few years ago which is the 7th in the series, and it was so good I wanted to read them all. It took me a while to track this down because it hadn't been available in English until recently, and I've collected almost all the others. This one is set in Australia but still qualifies as Nordic Noir.

On audiobook I'm listening to Here if You Need Me, which is the true story of a woman who became a chaplain for the Maine State Forest Service after her husband's death.










As far as podcasts go, I've been getting a little bored of the ones I've been listening to a lot, so I tried a few others on my list, like Star Talk Radio with Neil Degrasse-Tyson and another one called Meet the Composer, which is an in-depth conversation and exploration of a modern composer. There's so much stuff out there that I think it's a good idea to actively search out new things and thenactually listen to them. 

     I finished The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and it's really starting to change the way I think about things - acquiring them, storing them, getting rid of them, etc. While I haven't put the full system in place, I did try one trick about folding things up in drawers and stacking them vertically. This is really amazing and I highly recommend it. My drawer of tops before was a jumbled mess, and I didn't even know what was in there. After culling what I didn't need, I can see everything as soon as I open the drawer and choose what I actually want to wear, not just whatever's on top. I even did my husband's scrub drawer too so he could feel like a Japanese surgeon. Adorable. I really like what she has to say about the less you have, the more you're able to see what you value and what direction you want to go in life.

 


     

Too much fun

   

     I can't believe it's been a week and a half since I've blogged anything. I was so good at the beginning of the year doing it every day, then every other, but there's just been way to much activities/festivities and fun going on. Last weekend was my husband's birthday weekend. We made it  a weekend because instead of going away we decided to do a staycation here in LA filled with fun stuff that we never do - namely, venture east of the 405. Friday evening I wanted us to go to The Museum of Death in Hollywood, but the logistics of traffic means that we have to put that off for another time. It sounds really cool though, so when we finally get there I'll be sure to report back. We opted to chill at home for a few hours and take naps instead. What we did do was go The Prince for dinner. It's one of those LA institutions set in a historic building, this one in Koreantown. It's also the setting for the bar scenes in New Girl, which we're big fans of , so I thought he'd get a kick out of it. The food was amazing - I had some vegetable dumplings. We've been really getting into Korean food lately. I don't eat meat, but they're known for their fried chicken. The hubs had some kind of chicken dish and loved it. The have a private room for parties and lots of banquets. It's a fun place for a group of friends and a great place to take out-of-towners.

     

This much fun should be illegal

     Saturday was his actual birthday do we wanted to do some grown-up things. Our son went to a sleepover and off we went. We finally made a trip to Greystone Mansion which is an historic site in Beverly Hills. They have tours of the interiors but unfortunately they're only on the first Saturday of the month. We did walk around the grounds which were lovely and had an impressive view of the city. The site is used extensively for weddings and other events as well as filming. I really wanted us to go to the Chado Tea Room after this, but the Hollywood location was in the Hollywood and Vine complex and I could see it would be a nightmare getting in and out of there, so we stopped in a little place along Melrose instead. The Chado is something I first saw on Groupon and it looked like a fun activity. Besides afternoon tea, they have a tea tasting and a store. There are several locations around LA. Since my son really loves tea we might do this with him another time. 

     For dinner, we went to another LA institution, Lucques. I've been hearing about this place forever and have seen Suzanne Goin all over the chef shows. I would describe it as Rustic Continental cuisine. We started with salads of burrata and root vegetables. Hubs had a beef dish which he claimed was devine. I had the ricotta gnocchi, which were these pillows of perfection on top of sunchoke purée, pea shoots, chanterelles, pecorino and pistachios. Wow. I'm obsessed with her now and want to get her cookbooks. Beyond the flavors it was the textures which were really memorable and unique. The dining room itself is pretty small, though there is a patio area. There's a small bar and a cozy fireplace as you walk it. It's incredibly romantic and the service was great.

     

     In the theme of the weekend, I planned a lot, but we ended up doing about half. After dinner, we realized that we had 4 hours to kill before the late-night event, so we decided to once a gain go home and take naps, but not before grabbing some tres leche cake at Whole Foods to sing happy birthday with. Then we were off to North Hollywood to Zombie Zoe's Underground Theatre. I was trying to find something really unusual and there's a lot out there, including roller derby and burlesque and Mexican wrestling, but none of those we going on that night. After searching around I came to this theatre doing some weird stuff, so we went to see an 11pm show called The Nightmares Trio. I've seen (and done) quite a bit of experimental theatre, but never anything quite like this. This production had 3 very compelling performers and a musician. It was dark and sexy and touched on a little bit of everything and somehow tied it all together. You should see it, and if you like it, like we did, you'll be back. Outside the theatre I saw a friend from college that I hadn't seen for years. He was a long time fan and was getting set to mount a show there himself, so we got to meet Zombie Joe. We talked about the writing process for these shows and some of the other things they do there. They've been in the space for more than 20 years, and though it was a struggle getting attention up in the valley for a long time, they've lately gotten a lot of critical love from the LA Times which has been great for them. 

     Sunday we had to take our son downtown for rehearsal, so we took that opportunity to visit another LA landmark, Grand Central Market. This was kind of like the Original Farmer's Market by the Grove, but much more crowded, bustling, ethnic and downtown. After walking the whole place, we settled on Berlin Currywurst as they had a tofu option for me. You can specify the level of heat, the way it's served and the toppings. It was pretty good, but I have to say not nearly as good as Wurstkuche. The sausage was small and the bread was overpowering, but the flavor was pretty good. We ordered the fries which were amazing. 

     After this we stopped in to The Last Bookstore. This is an old bank building which has been converted to a retail and art space. Downstairs is the bookstore which carries both new and a curated selection of used books, CDs, DVDs and vinyl. Upstairs has the rest of the books in a warren-like maze of rooms, art gallery spaces and Gather, downtown's only yarn store. 

     I finally got to go inside as every other time I've been down here it was closed. It's a very tiny space with a small selection of yarn, some of which is from indie dyers. I had planned for us to go on a walking tour of downtown with Free LA Tour, but the skies looked threatening and my hubs, being a good dad, sacrificed his jacket to the kid. Once again we opted to go home and take naps, which was a good thing because it then proceeded to rain like hellfire. The plan was to go back later and pick up our son, then head to the San Gabriel Valley for dim sum. It was still pretty crappy out so we punted on the road trip, took him home and got noodle bowls from Whole Foods. And that was the weekend! Planned lots of stuff, did half of it, took naps. It was pretty adventurous for us considering the stuff we usually do in LA (mostly within a mile of our house).

     Last time I mentioned a rather aggressive yoga class I took at Yogaglo. Well, I ended up straining my lumbar spine so bad that I could barely move for days. 11 days later I'm still having a hard time bending down even to put on clothes. Now, this could be owing to a lot of factors - lack of conditioning, my own lumbar history, age, but I've been practicing for 21 years and I've never experienced anything like this. I'm very good at making adjustments for my body, especially when it comes to forward bends. The problem is that I really believe these kind of asana should be proceeded my 45 minutes to an hour of vinyasa and standing poses. In contrast, this was only an hour long Level 2 class and had almost no warm up. I feel a little arrogant questioning the wisdom of this teacher, but this was my honest experience. The take home lesson? I really understand the value of all that hard work you have to do in order to safely do advanced asana. I'm not always a fan of it, but it's for your own protection, among other things.

 

 

     Besides being a gimp this week, this was the week of rehearsals and performances for my son with the LA Opera Off Grand, which was at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown. He's playing violin in the Production of Noah's Flood. This was a great opportunity for young musicians and community members to work with world class artists including conductor James Conlon. This series has been going on for 9 years and this was the first time I'd heard of it. I can't say it's all that fun getting form the Westside to downtown during rush hour, even on the weekends, but it was only a few times and I think it was worth it. Hopefully I can convince him to do it again next year.

     The other fun thing we did as a family was get new iPhones, which were a long time coming as ours were barely functional. We also finally dumped AT&T for T-Mobile. Had to buy the phones at full price but don't have to worry about a contract. So far we are loving the iPhone 6, though migrating was a little confusing. Some of my photos seem to be lost in the mix but are floating around here and there. I have a pretty Spigen case and got a white phone for a change. I also opted for the shatter-proof case recommended by the clerk, as apparently these phones are super fragile. Best of all, no overages with T-Mobile, which were what made us leave AT&T. 

     I'm one my way with the second Aegean Sea mitt. Once I get this very long post up, I can maybe make some progress on it.

An Italian-American weekend

     This weekend we went out to the Coachella Valley to attend the Frank Sinatra Black Tie Gala. We were invited by my cousin who helps produce the event. It's a whole weekend benefitting the Barabara Sinatra Center for Abused Children, which is a really wonderful charity. There was a star-studded pro-am golf tournament on Friday, but we came for the gala, which was quite a shindig and included a full-on concert by Burt Bacharach. Wow. It's really the end of an era. There were women wearing fur coats, which you don't see a whole lot of anymore. We got to hobnob a bit with the stars.

The fun and music continued at the after party. I’ve never been much for nightclubs but I’m a sucker for these things - galas, auctions, events, they’re so much fun.

     Between packing, driving and doing it again 2 days later, that was the weekend. We got back to LA with a minute to spare for my son's last meditation class. The parents got to sit in for the end of it which was nice. I'm not sure what he got from it but it's a start. He's really primed to take yoga now because at least then he'll get to move. A lot of the stuff about boredom is coming up in A Life Worth Breathing, with practical ways of getting past it. I also like what he says about happiness. We always want specific things because we think they're going to make us happy, so why not just seek happiness, what ever form that might take? It turns out that we might not always know what’s best for us.

   







On Tuesday I took a class with Tias Little at YogaGlo. He runs Prajna Yoga in Santa Fe, which is pretty cool since I’ll be out there next month. I remember taking his class at least once before, but this one is memorable because it had some very intense flexion/extension of the lower back and my lumbar area is incredible sore today.

Dwi Hasta Bhujasana

This is different than being in pain, strangely enough. I know the things I can’t do if I want to avoid pain. This soreness is clearly from working muscles that I’m not accustomed to working and taking them to their limit. The class was filled with a lot of asanas with low back flexion like the one above, and the counter balance was some supported bridges

Supported bridge

This is actually a more intense stretch than it looks. I usually prefer doing it with the bolster along my spine, and keeping my feet in as much as I need to avoid over-extending.

     Here are my Aegean Sea Mitts modeled on my hand. So elegant. Here is the back side with the increases.

The increases were done facing away from the row marker, so M1R before the marker and M1L after. I think it’s a nice feature.

I am 2 rows away from finishing the sleeve portion of Hitofude! It’s only taken 3 months. Since it’s going to be joined the round, I have to soak and block it while it’s still on the needles. That’s getting done tonight, and then I’m plowing through the second mitt. I finished reading Knitting Without Tears. 

While it’s definitely a reference book, it’s a really fun read. Most of it is not applicable to my life as I live in LA and don’t have much need for ski sweaters and warm hats, but I love how she lays out recipes for pretty much all the basics. All you have to do is plug in your measurements and go, leaving plenty of room for creativity. 

Half way there

     I finally finished my first Aegean Sea Mitt.

I had almost gotten finished and decided I could do 10 more rows, so took out the eyelet band and redid it. I was thinking of living dangerously and seeing how high I could get, but figured this was the safer bet. The original pattern stopped at 8.5 inches, so all of the rest I calculated myself, the details of which are in the notes on the Ravelry page. I’m going to cleanse my palette with Hitofude for a day or so before I plow into the second one. This glove goes right up to the elbow and used 35 grams of fingering weight yarn.

     My iPhone 5 is refusing to start up, which is horrible. It’s everything to me, including my camera. I’m able to model and photograph at the same time, which doesn’t work so well with the iPad. It ran out of juice last night and that was that. When I press the top button I get an Apple for a few seconds and then nada. It was showing up on the computer today when I tried to sync, but not anymore, so I can't even reset it. We've been waiting till our AT&T contracts were up because they are the worst, so now I decided to go with T-Mobile. If we go tomorrow I think I can avoid a trip to the Genius Bar. This phone was really on its last legs for a long time. iPhone 6, here we come!

 

     Tuesday night I went to see a staged reading of The Latest Mrs. Schiller at The Track 16 Gallery Loading Dock Stage. This was in an industrial section of Culver City I'd never been to, right near the Tennis Channel offices (I have a dream of working there). A loading dock is actually a pretty cool, industrial theatre stage. I took mercy on the boys and let them stay home, which was smart. A staged reading in a loading dock is for die-hard theatre fans. The actors were on book but the performances were full-on and they were a joy to watch. The writing was sharp and funny, in the end the plot didn't make much sense, but all in all I was glad I dragged myself out of the house. They're doing a series of   these readings on Tuesdays, so they're worth checking out, and free.

     I watched a movie on Netflix called Tabloid. It was a documentary about a young woman who fell in love with a young Mormon man in the late 70s who was pressured to leave before their wedding to go out on his mission. She was convinced he had been kidnapped, so put together this hare-brained scheme to go to England with a bunch of hired guns to rescue him. There is a question of whether she kidnapped him or he went willingly, but they ended up spending days together engaging in B&D before he fled back to his mission with second thoughts. She was arrested and it became a tabloid sensation  in the UK. I cannot resist anything about Mormons, so this was right up my alley. It was really more about her though, a loopy, crazy character who never got over this guy.

   Our Favorite new TV show is Better Call Saul. If you're a fan of Breaking Bad, this is a prequel, and shot in the same style and with the same sensibility. We weren't expecting a lot because the reviews were just okay, but we were pleasantly surprised and are looking forward to it every week.
It's a fun little puzzle when new characters pop up, and you try to figure out how they fit into the BB narrative in the future. I actually just booked the flights for our Spring break trip to New Mexico. We'll be staying in Santa Fe most of the time, but I think we may have to take a detour to Albuquerque for one of those location tours. Another thing we are definitely doing is one of the NM Fiber Arts Trails. This was the concession I got from letting them skip the play, and they better not complain. I definitely want to hit Victory Ranch. I just bought some dryer balls from them and they have a large retail store. The rest of the time we plan to do plenty of hiking and hot springs. Our son is turing 13 on the trip and we promised him a spa day. We also want to take in the art and cuisine that Santa Fe is famous for.

Love

     I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day. I received way too much See's Candy These are absolutely my favorite chocolates and there are stores all over CA in in some other states. If you don't have one around you and have never seen them in the airport, they have an online store. My favorites are the dark chocolate caramels.

     At this point my husband knows what I like, and throws a few other things in just for fun. He also knows that cut flowers make me sad, but orchids are forever.

     These are Cymbidiums in a lovely planter. I have another Cymbidium that I bought a few years ago and leave outside. I almost never water it, never feed it, and it is bursting out of its pot but gives me gorgeous blooms season after season. Orchids are pretty much the only plants I can be trusted with because they're murder-proof.

     Our son was on a sleepover, so we had an actual Valentine's date night. We had an early dinner at The Penthouse at the Huntley Hotel. It was sunset and the views were spectacular all around.

     It was a prix fixe with 4 courses, plus I had a really nice wine pairing. I had the oysters, a lemony risotto and a branzino to die for. The wine pairing was perfect - 3 (generous) ounces per course, and 1 oz. of dessert wine. We were stuffed. Thinking we had plenty of time, we had to make our way to the Edgarmar Center a few miles away for a 7:30 curtain. I know I've bitched about the rampant development around here before, but between getting to this restaurant and then to the theatre, you would have thought we were going into midtown Manhattan from Jersey, and it's all just a few miles from our house. It was a perfect storm - Saturday, Valentine's, and a rather glorious and unseasonable beach day made for gridlock in downtown Santa Monica.
   
     I have to give my husband credit for taking me to the theatre - that's pretty advanced masculinity. We had been here years before to see a friend in a play, and I used to know the theatre's director as our kids went to school together. Train to Zakopane, written by indie film director Henry Jaglom is set in 1928 in the border region of Poland near the Soviet Union, and deals with war, shifting borders and the history and realities of pervasive anti-Semitism that were giving rise to the Third Reich at the time. The play was based on the author's father's recollections of events at that time. My husband, whose parents were from this region found the subject matter fascinating. Also, after 15 years of attending almost nothing but City Garage plays, he appreciated it's straight-forward, linear quality. I was focusing more on the production and of course the acting, which I found ranged from mostly fine to distractingly bad. It's also a love story, but in the end, it didn't bring the feels, and with subject matter like this it really should have.

Don't try these at home

Uttanasana

Paschimottanasana

I finally felt ready to take my first yoga class of the year, which was at YogaGlo with Darren Rhodes

of Yoga Oasis in Tuscon. I had never taken class with Darren, but it was just what I needed. It was only a one hour class but was core intensive because of some innovative adjustments to plank, like doing it with the tops of your feet on the floor. You have to hold your core especially tight to prevent your lower back from sagging. It's clear that he is of the therapuetic mindset and/or is used to giving lots of adjustments. His default instruction for uttanasana is with bent knees, which is how I have to do any forward stretch. I have the flexibility, but the stretch itself is murder on my lower back symptoms. Most people with low back issues should tend to avoid these intense stretches. This is especially true for me in paschimottanasana, which I usually avoid like the plague. I had never seen an adequate adjustment for this, but he had everyone start curving over bent legs with soles of feet on the floor, and then extending out from there if it felt right. At this point I really trusted whatever he was doing. He did some great happy baby variations and quad stretches and thread the needle, showing how to go deeper in a safe way. Like most of the wonderful teachers who come through there, I wish I could study with him all the time. My strongest endorsement is that since class on Thursday I've hardly taken any Advil, and I usually eat them like candy.

     An interesting thing happens when I'm in that studio and it's getting kind of freaky. I go to the mat before class starts, sometimes never having studied with the teacher, and get into an asana that my body needs that day. It could be anything, sometimes it's something unusual and specific, and it almost always comes up in the class, sometimes as the theme of the class. Before Darren's class I was just sitting in Virasana, which I never do, just watching and listen to other students. Sure enough, we end up sitting in Virasana. In Amy Ipolitti's class I started doing these wide circular stretches, and that was what the whole class was about - circles instead of lines. It only seems to happen there so it must be the vibe of the studio - lots of energy bouncing around that loft.

     After yoga I made my first smoothie of the year. It was my first because I finally fixed the blade mechanism on my bar blender. Along with the TV, it's part of our trying our best to repair what we have instead of just replacing things. This is my go-to smoothie. I have a freaky ability to eyeball everything and have it come out to the exact top of the glass, maybe left over from some long-ago bartending days. Here's the recipe - the amounts are guesstimates:

1 cup non-fat plain yogurt
1/4 cup orange juice, or amount needed for blending
Sweetener of choice - Truvia, honey, agave nectar, etc
1/2 cup frozen mango
1/4 cup frozen raspberries
1 tsp coconut flakes (optional)
3 ice cubes

Place yogurt, juice, sweetener and coconut in blender. Gradually add in frozen fruit and ice. Add more juice if needed.

I use whatever fruit I have, but it's usually a mix of 2, with a basis of mango, peaches or pineapple with some berries in smaller amounts. A lot of people like bananas in smoothies, so try that too. It's super simple, healthy, clean and organic if you wish.

     Finally there's knitting. I have not done a lot of it this weekend, but am almost done with my first Aegean Sea Mitt. There was a lot of futsing with the increases and how long to make it. I really want to use all the yarn and I could do it if I wore them slouchy, but I do want to have the option to pull them up. I don't think there's enough to round the elbow (plus that means more measuring and math). I did a decrease on the last knit row from 68 down to 60, then did the eyelet edging. The edging was still a bit too wide for me, so I have to decide it I want to live with it or tink the last 4 rows and try again, decreasing to 56. Maybe a decision for tomorrow.

Math

   

     I came to a conundrum with what I am now calling my Aegean Sea Mitts. I requested the larger skein of yarn because I thought I would need it and wanted the option of long gloves. The gloves are now almost 10 inches long, 1.5 inches longer than the pattern, and I still have quite a bit of yarn. Since I started with the dark color, it's also the lightest and prettiest part. In order to use up every last bit I realized that I would have to do some increases. Now, I'm not math-adverse in the least. I love solving equations, but coming up with your own equations to solve, that's a different story. I put them aside for a day, but that didn't solve anything. Finally I sat down with a pencil and paper and a ruler and tape measure, measuring the mitt and my arm in various places and figuring out how many stitches I would need to increase, and when. I also had to carefully wiggle the mitt on and off of my arm without dropping any stitches of a 9" circular, needle, my preferred method of working mitts and socks. I'm doing paired M1 increases facing each other on either side of the stitch marker every 7 rows. This will get me a 20 stitch increase by the time I estimate the yarn running out. We'll see how it goes!
   
     While I was mulling this over I worked a few rows on Hitofude. It's such a treat to go to the relatively large size 5s after working on toothpicks for so long. I'm looking forward to finishing that sleeve section (finally) and grafting the ends together.
   
     Look what came in the mail today!

6 luscious balls of Aunt Lydia's size 3 crochet thread. I was perusing the Crochet Today from 2008 I got at a yard sale. Not much that interested me, until I saw the Sunburst Bowl. It was a technique I had never heard of called tapestry crochet, where the colors are floated across the top of the work and trapped there by the working yarn. It looked fascinating and I knew I had to try it. I figured I could pick up this stuff at Joann's, but they mostly had size 10. After searching around the internets I found some at Knitting Warehouse for $2.04, which is quite a bargain. I came up with my own palette which differs a lot from the original.

In reading the project notes on Rav, yarn management does seems to be a pretty big problem with this technique, especially when working with 6 colors. I have to try and constrain my self from starting this until the mitts are done, because there is a deadline there. This will definitely be an at-home only project.

     The whole family seems to be in a Mindfulness Meditation phase. Besides taking my son to UnPlug, I listened to Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief which was a nice introduction but rather short at just 2 hours. Through Unplug I learned about the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. While I have little formal training in meditation per se, my 20+ years of yoga practice has exposed to me to various forms of meditation and mindfulness. My husband was aware of this as an established part of medicine and can receive CME credits for it. We decided to take the Mindful Awareness practices class together this Spring. Now if I could only get him into the yoga studio...

     In this same vein, I'm taking a break from dystopia and crime and reading A Life Worth Breathing by Max Strom. I've never had the pleasure of taking a class with Max but I know that he's quite a rockstar in the yoga world. I also started listening to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. This book is getting a lot of buzz for it's power to transform your behaviors and your life. Change and transformation seems to be in the air all around me these days. The key seems to be going with whatever is manifesting itself for you. These things do seems to arrive on their own timeline and in their own way.

Everything takes forever

     Back in January I made a list of some things that I intended to do this year, and of them was to finally put the blackout liner on the shade in the bedroom. For the last year or so I had 3 yards of fabric clipped onto it - I had enough for the 3 shades in the room. Finally I just got sick of looking at it, unclipped it, and unscrewed the shade from the sill.

     This is some kind of rattan roman shade that was here when we moved in. The sun really only is a problem on this one window, so it's the only one I'm doing. It's such a simple thing but it took, like, 4 hours. I had to cut the shade precisely with a rotary cutter, press and tack down the seams with tape, thread everything under the rings, staple it to the frame, and then take all the rings out and reposition them through both layers. Finally I had to put it back up by myself which was awkward. This is why when I look around this house I think "do I really want to get into this now"? But it's done and it looks great. The same thing happened a few days ago when I decided to finally reframe some watercolor paintings I've had for, I don't know, 10 years? This was another all-afternoon project.

Just some of the mess

I framed up a bunch of my son's artwork about 2 years ago which I was very happy to get done, but they've been sitting just like that on the floor of the dining room ever since. Just like in our old house, I'm sure we'll get it just the way we like it, then we'll move. 

     Yesterday was actually a great day for this project because it was one of those rare, wonderful, drizzly days in LA. Here's the view of my jungly front yard. 

     I absolutely love it. I probably wouldn't love it all the time, but more than we've been getting for sure.

     I decided to take a break from the DVR and watched Silver Linings Playbook on Netflix. I know, I'm 2 years behind. It was really a cute movie, but I'm a little perplexed why Jennifer Lawrence won the Oscar. I really like her but okay, no better than Bradley Cooper who was really quite good. I'm never one of those people who catches up on all the nominees before the ceremony and I'm even less likely to do that now that there's some insanely good stuff on TV. Beside the return of John Oliver and The Walking Dead, there's Better Call Saul and a new docuseries on HBO called The Jinx. It's a true crime story in the vein of Serial and The Staircase. The Staircase is about the trail of author Michael Peterson for his wife's murder. You can watch it online or download from iTunes. You are watching a trial as it unfolds and it's riveting and very binge-able.

     I finally finished Apple Tree Yard. I'll be putting up a review on Goodreads which I'll link to, because I'm dead-set against spoilers. I gave it 3 stars. While it was diverting it was also upsetting, but more than anything, it didn't bring the feels. This was the same problem I had with Life After Life and On Such a Full Sea and quite a few others lately. If I don't get an emotional wallop then it just doesn't make it into 4 star territory.

     I look my son to Unplug Meditation for a 3 week series for kids. It was a nice space and there was another knitting mom there so we got to share projects. It was hard to tell how he liked it because he's  12 and anything without electronics is boring, but I know that just the act of taking the time to clear your mind can have powerful effects. There was a lot of press on the walls, and it was being described as the Drybar of meditation, as in come in when you want, get it done and be on your way. I thought that was pretty funny, but it's very appealing for today's lifestyle. There were tons of kids there so the demand is definitely there.

     Finally I was going through my bookmarks today and came across a website that I'd joined a while back called Flight Memory. It lets you track all the flights you've ever taken and it calculates how many miles you've flown. It's one of those wonderful time-wasters for travel nerds, like Gogobot, which lets you track everyplace you've been and post pictures. You would think it would be impossible to track all your flights and you might be right, but for some reason I've kept a record of every one I've taken going back 20+ years, and I remember all the ones before that. Nerd me up.