Penguin Girl

Apology: Dear NYC, I’m sorry that it’s been really cold these past few days. I know that I was sad that I might not have a chance to wear the River Wrap until the autumn, but this isn’t acceptable weather. It is supposed to be Spring. Yes, rain is ok, I understand the need for it. Unfortunately I actually felt the need to mutter the s-word in my description of how the weather felt late this afternoon. That’s not ok. I’ve happily worn the wrap the past two days and have been very warm but I’d be just as happy if it were folded with some cedar for the next seven or so months.

Moving on, this afternoon I took advantage of my husband’s corporate discount perks to visit two amazing exhibits at MoMA: Color Chart and Design and the Elastic Mind.

I’ll start with Color Chart (sorry, site is in Flash). Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time at Knitty City not creating, but wandering around the store complaining to everyone that I was looking for inspiration. I should have stopped by MoMA instead.. the Color Chart exhibit wasn’t as inspiring as I hoped, but something about the white walls and the squares of colour by artists such as Frank Stella, Gerhard Richter, François Morellet, Sherrie Levine, and Sol LeWitt among others has left me thinking beyond my normal limited colour choices…

Yet Design and the Elastic Mind was exactly the push toward inspiration I was desperately seeking. Some of the items I had seen before (one example), however, many I had not. Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny’s “Honeycomb Vase” is stunning. A NYT review of the exhibit may be found here.

If you have the opportunity I urge you to visit both exhibits. Yes, you can see much of it online, but the experience of seeing all of this innovation organized together left my senses excited.

As a last minute decision, last night I decided to stop by Stephanie’s talk as it really was on my way home. I missed her talk [I’m trying to convince E to drive me up to Webs on the 27th] but arrived in time to get my book signed and see some people, but not everyone I was looking for. I wasn’t really with it as I had a long day and didn’t really /talk/ at all with her when it was actually my turn. Spot kept jumping out of my bag at every opportunity and was constantly muttering something about sock yarn and lace, even though he and I have discussed the contents of my stash and my time commitments for the next few weeks. Sometimes I don’t know what gets into him. I think it’s PG being a bad influence. In any case, I really love these types of events because the community of knitters always inspires me and I make new friends (and push at least ONE person to write a public journal. Last year it was A, this year it’s (hopefully) E. I’m very happy to see both on wordpress). I was sitting in a chair introducing myself to E and hopefully not leaving the impression that I’m completely insane and waiting so I didn’t jump the entire line when a woman and her friend walked by and stopped to compliment the Wrap (Actually, everyone did; I’ve never had so many compliments on a piece of knitting before. Thank you everyone!). I spoke a bit about it and she suddenly asks, “Are you Penny?”. To which I replied at the same time she said, “Melanie!”. It was so wonderful to meet her in real space.. she was there with her friend T who has been her penpal for many years and they finally met in real person as well. I had a wonderful bit of tea with them after getting my book signed and we actually succeeded in crossing paths at MoMA this afternoon.

Lastly, my mum bought a new car. This pleases me as her Corolla is almost 15 years old and the back doors no longer consistently open (or one no longer did and sometimes the other sticks?). The Corolla was a good car, it drove me (I rarely drove it) all over while I was in high school, making weekly trips across the length of the Island for orchestra rehearsals and at least two trips a summer (more like three or four) up to Oneonta for music “camp”. Please say hello to Snowflake (the car). May they enjoy their time together in health and safety. A has a new white scion too, his is the bigger boxy one and I don’t know if it has been named (helicopter taxi might be appropriate). If the weather is ever not grey hopefully we’ll get a photo of the two together. :)

Since it’s 11pm and I’m just starting to draft this, I will be lazy and provide a photo-heavy post instead. If you are on dial-up (is anyone anymore) or a slow flakey wifi connection, I’m sorry. But first.

Thank you sara!!! (more on that at the end. I can’t wait until Monday)

Last weekend we spent a lot of time gathering the final parts to the new kitchen. Monday was a busy day ultimately finding us at Home Depot Expo choosing a countertop [Beige Olympo] and sink (the most expensive part!). I’ll skip our reaction to the process of this and just show you the pictures. The sink arrived Thursday (the box was big, but it is quite light) and the countertop “guys” made an appointment for this coming Friday afternoon (it’s my fault, I just couldn’t guarantee I’d be home any other day). It’s really starting to come together. In the corner upper cabinet are 3 lazy-susans which make a large difference. We’ll be adding one more shelf even though we’ll both need the step stool to reach it. We’re thinking of putting a fold down counter/table below the cook books. We’ll see. That shelf really is even, it’s the photostitch that makes it a little “odd” (it doesn’t help that our walls aren’t straight and the doorman-phone is crooked too).

(click to go to flickr, they’re all slightly bigger there)

I’ve cooked a little this week. Without a countertop it’s a little difficult. I made pasta for shabbat and we had tacos tonight. On Thursday I used up some leftover brown rice and made this fried rice in the picture. It was a perfect lunch on the snowy Friday.

How did I make it?

Leftover Fried rice with soy^2 and mushrooms
You need: leftover (brown) rice, extra-firm tofu, edamame, shitake mushrooms, olive oil, sesame oil.
Do:
First slice the tofu and put it on a baking sheet and bake for a while at about 250° I can’t tell you exactly how long to bake it as I set a timer and then fell asleep and slept through it. I think it was in there for about 45 minutes.
Next start the water for your edamame and go clean your mushrooms. you can just run them under water, just don’t soak them for hours.
Heat some olive oil in a pan and when it’s warm throw in the mushrooms. When the water is ready cook the edamame. After the mushrooms seem to soften and shrink, add the tofu (i chopped my slices a little smaller at this point) and let them brown a bit. Drain the edamame and if it’s still in the pod, shell a few and throw them in the pan. When it seems that stuff is starting to brown top with the rice and sprinkle with sesame oil. Stir it every so often until browned to desired level. Enjoy!

Lastly, Sara sent me a box. I knew she sent it, but I had no idea what was in it beyond the felted spocks which we hoped fit me. The answer to that is a very loud YES! It’s as if she had knit them for me. I’m still in shock that they fit. You didn’t reknit them did you? She also sent many other goodies which have me in shock, as they include another pair of socks!!! These two pairs fit me better than all the socks I’ve knit myself. Sara, you are a master knitter and i’m inspiring to half a quarter of your talent one day.

Lastly, I don’t want it to seem that Britt’s little penguin guy is being misplaced. PG has been talking with him a good deal and he is fitting in and feeling at home and really wants to come with me to the office tomorrow when we do a very long overdue upgrade and I hope that it goes smoothly. At the moment that is an unknown and I’m VERY nervous about it. So I think i’ll let him come. We could use the moral support and good happy vibes he brings.

A while ago I was honoured to be tagged with this “make my day” award that’s making the rounds of the knit blogs these days… it made MY day… and I’ve been waiting for the right time and way to respond to it.

I’ve had a pretty rough couple of weeks and so many people have been very kind and generous with words and actions and just plain wonderful.

Thank you!

I really truly appreciate and admire the friendships I have recently formed in person and online and don’t quite now how to really thank you for it. The majority of you should know who you are; there are some whose writing I read but do not comment on, they make my day too. Thank you. I really don’t know how or if I’ll ever repay the kindness properly, but I will try.

I’m a really really bad twitterer. I don’t check it all the time, nor do I always update my status. I don’t pay to have SMS on my phone (I’m cheap sometimes) so if I’m not at a computer and checking it, I don’t see it. Therefore, if I don’t reply to a tweet timely I apologize.

My tool for this week satisfies part of my stamp problem. I LOVE stamps. I want to go back to tokyo just to stock up on a bunch since I seem unable to find these (second row, first column) here. I’m also fascinated by date formats and I have never liked the American standard date, i.e. February 21, 2008. I’ve written 21-Feb-2008 long before I knew it was “British”. We don’t know where I came up with it as I hadn’t had exposure to it prior to my adoption of it. It was an improvement in my eyes, but it wasn’t perfect. My largest complaint was that it didn’t sort well. It took me more years than I should admit to realize that the ISO standard 8601 would fulfill most of my needs. But most stamps I find here are the wrong format. When I was in Tokyo I picked up a DDMMYYYY stamp, so it was closer. A while back I found a how-to online which i now can’t track down which wrote about how easy it was to modify a regular date stamp. I have been thinking about it for a while. Stamps were more pricey than I wanted so I waited. Yesterday I wandered into the 99¢ store next door to the Firm and discovered they were selling stamps with a “received” or “faxed” add on … for 99¢ plus tax. I looked at it and appeared to be something I could easily take apart so I bought one. Tonight I did and then followed what I recalled of the tutorial and made my stamp. So I introduce to you my 99¢ ISO-ish date stamp.

Wow. That was wordy!

Well, my holiday is over, my holiday has begun, and I am sorry for those scrambling to find gifts before next Tuesday. So what am I doing?

Holiday knitting (and crochet).

I finally made the Polar Bear Cub Hat! I think it’s adorable as can be. If you knit with plush yarn (yucks) I do not suggest sewing on parts with the same yarn. I haven’t yet heard if it fits since L’s mum kept my prototype, but we’ll see. The yarn is Peter Pan Darling in White. I held two strands together and used a 6mm crochet hook. I had about 12″ leftover after the sewing on of the ears. One is slighly off and there was no way I was able to undo it. I really don’t like plush yarns, but it is definitely soft as anything.

A coworker gave me a holiday gift, and she thought to give it early because of Chanukah. I thought this was a sweet surprise. In thanks, I knit her Amy King’s “Ripple Basket Liner” found in The Knitter’s Book of Yarn. I used less than one ball of Lion Kitchen Cotton in Sage. This knit up incredibly fast .. it’s knit center-out so there is no purling. :) I hope she’ll like it.

Next up, R bought his mum a new cell and I offered to knit him a cozy for it. He wanted to buy her a sewing machine but she asked for the phone. Considering how old hers is, we agreed this would be a smart gift. He requested red “with some white”. I chose the diamond pattern in More Sensational Knitted Socks and this is my first real attempt at two-colour knitting and I think it turned out wonderfully. It is knit in once piece from the bottom up, constructed quite similar to how I do socks. My floats are quite loose and he likes it. We decided to add a tether because “she looses everything”.. I’ve not been happy with the tethers I’ve seen. Sometimes I want it short, sometimes I want it a bit longer. So I made this one. Just inside at the base of the cord is a ring for the “short tether”. On the i-cord is another jumpring which floats and will wrap around whatever for a longer tether cord. I hope that she likes both the cozy and the new phone.

The Firm had their holiday dinner on Monday and I wanted a new hat to wear. Enter one skein of Kraemer Yarns Mauch Chunky in Portabello, a bunch of 5mm circs, and Rachel Iufer’s Robin’s Egg Blue Hat. I didn’t quite get done until after the first course was served but I finished it. I didn’t wear it during dinner and haven’t worn it in the office as it’s much too casual for my environment. It’s also a bit smaller than I’d like. I’m torn between ripping it and knitting a softer-lining with retractable ear flaps. This is a really great hat and it’s true that it’s a fast knit. I had cast on at 6:30am and by 6pm I had a hat, not to mention had worked a long day!

This morning I finished the second heel of the jaywalkers and am now flying up the leg. . It’s amazing how much tighter my stitches are for the leg than the foot. It’s a bit frustrating but we’ll see how they come out. They may be a gift but if they’re too wonky, I’ll keep them.

I have done a small (very small) bit of spindle spinning. I’ve been playing too much with Ravelry and knitting those holiday gifts (I have one more to go, which I need to think about before I cast on, technically I need it for 2008-01-02). Yesterday I received API access to Ravelry and started to add those new nifty progress bars on the sidebar (slowly I’m cleaning up this site). I need to clean up the css, but as I’ve been fighting lots of css lately, I’m going to let it think about itself first. Sometimes I can be very stupid when it comes to configuring technology (3 hours yesterday, we won’t talk about my idiotic behaviour today). I saw Squid and Squidette in Knitty City this afternoon. It was a pleasant surprise and wonderful to see Pearl’s store packed.

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Disclaimer the first: I’m a sucker for historical fiction.
Disclaimer the second: I’m a sucker for dragons.
Disclaimer the third: I’m incredibly ignorant of the Napoleonic Era
Disclaimer the fourth: I’m realizing now how poor my public school education was — I only know history as discrete events, not as a proper timeline across place at one time. I’m working to fix this but it’s slow going. [If you know of better timeline links please let me know]
Disclaimer the fifth: I “know” Naomi. In that I TA’d for her four out of the five times I was a TA. We’ve not kept in touch and I wish I was as “well read” (however poorly that still is) when we “knew” each other and interacted. One class had assignments to code Harry Potter spells.. I nodded and smiled and graded students based on their coding expertise (or lack thereof). I knew nothing of Harry Potter until I graduated in ‘01. *sigh* opportunities missed..

Now to the book.

I tried to wait to read this book until the term was fully over. It kept beckoning to me as I had enjoyed the first three books. This past weekend I could not resist any longer and cracked open the blue cover and began to read. I finished over dinner this evening. Quite a few other things happened in that time period (work, sleep, &c) but in between the front and back covers I’ve been re-immersed in the world that is Temeraie and a Napoleonic England with dragons. It is one that I did not want to end. While keeping in mind the disclaimers above and my incredible ignorance on everything, I feel that Naomi has continued her world and I was swept in and do not wish to leave. From the plot to characters; all of the imagery, I see and enjoy. I felt that I knew and could (albeit socially awkwardly for many reasons) converse with the characters. They often surprised me with an action or two, then in the next scene reassured me by fitting the personality I knew. Often Laurence pissed me off by being the proper “British gentleman” that he is, fretting about women’s honour and the like, but at the same time he swept me off my feet by being that sort of man. I want to know more about Harcourt and Roland and greatly cheered them. It should surprise no one that the women and their choices interested me.

In all, Naomi has crafted a wonderful read and I look with impatience to book 5.

I really fear writing more on this book as I don’t want to give any spoilers. It isn’t that large of a roller coaster that you can’t guess where things may but it does end a bit suddenly.

First Corrie and now Devorah have each honoured me with a Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award. (Did I miss anyone? Please let me know. It wasn’t intentional.)

Thank you!

I’m going to turn it right back at Corrie (happy birthday) and Devorah (you are an awesome teacher) because they really do both ROCK. To that I’ll add the Oregon contingent: Sara (who needs some smiles), Yvonne (who dyes wonderfully and is a joy to work with), and Jodie (for the inspiration she gives and luck with her new ventures [teaching and an etsy shop]) and last but not least Britt (for her bold words and thought provoking writing).