Adventures in Googleland

I'm posting this from my BIL's commuter apartment in sunny Mountain View, CA (home of Google) and where we have been staying since Thursday night. Mountain View is actually a cool place - there's a little downtownish place where there are a couple of blocks of cheek-to-cheek restaurants, most of which have sidewalk tables and all of which stay open into the late evening.

Fiona and I have been looking at schools, so far hitting Sta. Clara, Mills, Berkeley, USF, Stanford, St. Mary's. On Tuesday we leave for Sta. Cruz, San Luis Obispo and points south.

I was totally expecting cooler weather so I packed kind of wrong (Why oh why are my beloved flipflops in La Jolla?) and even optimistically packed some of my knitted warmy things, but it looks like they'll go unused yet again.

Yesterday we were only going to visit USF, so we thought we'd go on a little yarn crawl first. Armed with mapquest directions, we made our way to Uncommon Threads in Los Altos. First of all, Los Altos has a cute little shopping area, much like Girard in my beloved La Jolla, but SO MUCH BETTER. Sigh.




Anyway, Uncommon Threads is a great yarn shop...in my opinion, not as great as Knitting in La Jolla, but it is roomier. I got to see a ribwarmer all knitted up, which I'd never seen before except in photos. And which, PS, I won't be making one of anytime soon, at least for myself. I think it would actually subtract inches from my height and add them to my hips - no thanks.

I also got to touch a bunch of Jamieson's wool, which I've almost bought a boatload full of before sight unseen, and discovered it's scratchy. Even after swatching. Even after washing. Still a little too scratchy for me. So see? Yarn shopping ends up saving me money in the longrun.


Instead I came home with some of my beloved Koigu, which was there in the flesh and you see pictured at the top and below, and some Lana Grossa sockyarn, and some little 4" dpns in size 2 for said sockyarn. Remember, it's vacation yarn!



After Uncommon Threads, we hit the 101 north and headed for ImagiKnits in San Francisco. It turns out that ImagiKnits is smack in the Castro, where, I'll tell you right now, people are having a damn good time on the weekends. In looking for a link for you just now, I found out that I Remember Mama took place in the Castro...it doesn't look like, however, you'll find anyone anyone vaguely resembling Irene Dunne there now.

Fiona tried to get some pictures of the local landmarks from my moving vehicle as we cruised for a parking spot (in vain), but sadly, no photo of Moby Dick. We gave up trying to park and headed for USF (pictured below) instead.



Last night we took in a show at the Eureka Theatre on Jackson, where the 42nd Street Moon puts on lost or obscure Broadway gems from the golden era. We saw Plain and Fancy, a musical about the Amish, I kid you not, from way before Weird Al even had the idea for this. It was actually fabulous!

Despite the parking, San Francisco remains just about my favorite city. It's got the culture and the art scene, it's got nightlife, it's got great food, and it's tolerant. It's tolerant almost to the point of being intolerant, true, but I love it. And everywhere you look, there's something beautiful.

And now, since it's Sunday, your weekly dose of Snoop, weighing himself.



"I gained 8 ounces this week!"

Impulse, Shmimpulse

Warning: there is so little knitting content in this post it barely qualifies for a knitting blog. But if you like puppies and kitties (and who doesn't?), read on.

Another crazy weekend at chez Windansea. Fencing tournament, fundraiser for a school none of my children attend, two (two!!) projects involving a posterboard and/or construction of a miniature stage and puppets, a sleepover, and I'm not sure what else because I think I've only been home for 10 minutes in the last three days.

Here's what's really crazy: in the midst of all this, I had a major impulse-control problem leading to the acquisition of a puppy.

Yes indeedy, internet friends - meet Snoop. Snoop's a rat terrier; we knew absolutely nothing about the breed before we met him, but once we found out that blue eyes are an undesirable genetic trait in the breed we knew he was for us. (Mutant dog? Absolutely, where do we sign? I blame John.)

And guess what? Despite the fact that I swore I'd never put clothes on a dog, something about his size made me have to go into gay dog overdrive. I bought a rainbow collar, a pink Kate Spade-looking doggy purse (me!), a leash with a daisy on it and a t-shirt that says "Security" so he can be just a little thuggish sometimes. John made me put back the tanktop with rhinestones that spelled out "Rock Star" but the Petco is an easy 10 minutes by freeway.




Today is day two and Patty is adjusting pretty well; she still says "All your dog toys are belong to us!" but the feisty fight-picker does have a tender place for her new buddy.



Spot's still not so sure...he's trying to decide whether it's something to eat or just another ill-mannered dog to put up with.

PS Gratuitous Knitting Content: Now I can knit those doggy sweaters I keep seeing patterns for. Although maybe not this one - don't want people thinking my dog's been in the big house!