Laughing and Scratching

The weather feels like May - it's just lovely! You'd swear we were in San Diego rather than Merlin! Well, I am battling a bit of post-trip nausea probably brought on by the usual change in altitude, food and drink and then getting back to one's own "normal," but I expect that will be fine in time.

When last we met, dear 3.5 readers, I was preparing to go on a long weekend to the Big Apple to stay with my Dad so my stepmother could get to her sister's wedding and have fun without worrying about leaving him with a bunch of strangers. The weekend was really a lot of fun and my dad did very well, considering he has had very short days punctuated by sleep ever since his surgery where the hospital practically put him into a coma state. He's still in pain, but I think he's doing a lot better than he was just a couple of months ago when we last were up there. Suffice it to say, a lot of wine somehow disappeared (but no one got drunk that I could see!) and a lot of DVDs were watched and a lot of knitting got done on my most recent project - the baby blanket. I'm about to run out of that lovely Lion Brand wool yarn, but it is possible I'll finish, since I'm on the decreasing end of things. Even if I have to purchase another 456-yard skein, it won't break my heart, LOL!

The picture above is of an occupancy sign in a movie theater in midtown Manhattan - one of those multi-plex thingies. The number just cracked me up -
couldn't resist taking a picture. The movie was part of yesterday's activities. We were both too tired to really do much else (I suspect it had to do with our relative lack of physical activity during the prior three days coupled with the aforesaid wine ingestion).

Believe it or not, on the left is a mosaic of all the views we had - first from my dad and stepmother's apartment and the second (night time) from the hotel room where we stayed on our last night there. Once Maureen got back, we had a little dinner and conversation and caught up on our respective weekends and then John and I headed for the Marriott Marquis whence cometh the night time photos of Times Square. The other one is during Sunday's brief excursion to check into the hotel and salad at the Olive Garden on Times Square. John made some new friends, but they didn't join us for lunch - saw the Naked Cowboy guy wearing his tighty whities - interesting eclectic tastes, those New Yawkas!

The next morning, we had a good breakfast at the hotel, checked out, checked our luggage with the bellstand until later and then made my annual pilgrimage to School Products on 28th and Broadway. Owned by Berta Karapetyan

(author of Runway Knits), School Products boasts of being the oldest yarn shop in Manhattan. There are always some lovely sales - and it's worth the trip. On the third floor of an otherwise nondescript office building, it's not a large shop and it doesn't have all the fanciness of Knit New York or Purl Soho, but there is a spot where one's husband (or partner or lover or whatever) can sit down and relax and they do have quite a selection of yarns, books, magazines, and needles, etc. I think I made a bit of a killing for a (relatively) small amount of moolah. Above is a bag John got me from the Marriott gift shope, two cones (a little over 20 oz each) of laceweight merino at 3,400 yards per pound, two 40-inch Addi Turbos US sizes 4 and 8, respectively, and this:
An Autumn 1986 volume of Nihon Vogue. For five bucks. Granted it's a 1986 edition, so there's more than I care for of geometric intarsia and rather weird looking mens' sweaters, but that's Ohhhh Kayyyy. There are some lovely patterns and enough English translation and charts to make it about do-able. Although I do have to admit, it is strange getting used to the right-to-left orientation of Japanese magazines - must be like Hebrew - which is why the price is on the back of the magazine, because we Americans think the back of the magazine is the front of the magazine.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the lace merino - Since I have such a huge amount of yardage, I think I'm going to double it and knit a fine weight sweater with the US 4 Addis. But that will undoubtedly be in a few months after I've gotten some of my ongoing projects completed. Ah, I just hate when that happens, LOL NOT!

Well, folks I'd better get myself back to work!

Until later, God be with you 'til we meet again!

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