A Day in the Life of Sachi

Random Venti and Mommy pic. No stash pics in this post. Those are coming soon, I promise. My only problem is that I’ve already spun up a bit of what I bought so, no raw fiber pics but plenty in the way of yarn. I’ll have to take pics for you tomorrow. I hope.

On the first day of the festival, I grabbed my MIL and SIL and drove off to Canby, OR. BTW, there is absolutely nothing in Canby. We passed a place that looked like it was a teeny, tiny hydro-electric plant. It was cute and pretty so, of course, I stopped for a picture.

There was a place on the way called “The Spinning Wheel” with a big picture of a spinning wheel on the sign. I was really miffed when I learned that it was a pub and that there was no fiber to be had at this establishment.

Upon arriving, I made a beeline (that’s funny… I’ll tell you why later) to see Janel of Chameleon Colorworks. You may remember that Janel is the girly that I credit with my quick progress into spinner-hood. She sold me my wheel, but that’s not all. She was very encouraging and helpful in the coming months when I’d drop by Stick & Stone for a “spin-in” or just pop in to show what I’d spun. She’s one of the friends that I was very sad to leave behind in LA. However, I’ll be pushing her every button until she moves up this way.

Janel has recently re-started her blogging efforts on a blog called “The BeeBonnet Report” which is why “beeline” gave me a chuckle. I know… Simple minds… Janel is also the editor of Spindlicity, an online spindler magazine from which I have gained a lot of great information. I swear, this woman never sleeps! I spent a goodly wad of cash at Janel’s booth before moving on. I still think that her fibers have no rival. Everyone has a different sense of color and I guess Janel’s is a close to mine as anyone has gotten.

As you can see, it was a lovely day. It was AT LEAST 78 degrees. On Sunday, it was over 80 degrees. We Angelenos sort of stood around looking at each other in amusement having just survived such a hot summer in LA.

I was pleased to run into Sheila and Michael Ernst again. I’d met them at the Fiber Fest in Santa Monica at the end of August. They’re pals of Trish Andersen of Tanglewood Fiber. Trish will forgive me if I save the pic I took of her and Sheila until she gets her website to properly function.

Sheila and Michael are glass workers extraordinaire. Sheila keeps a lovely, little blog for us blogging freaks. But please don’t forget to take a look at the Ernst’s shop. The needles may very well be a tough price for us poor folks but I’ve personally seen an orifice hook Sheila made get dropped on a cement floor from about 4 feet (more than once) and it didn’t even get a chip. Further, the straight needles have a “no questions asked” lifetime repair warranty. I’d say it’s totally worth it given that bamboo and wood often snap under clumsy butts and metal… well… shit happens. These needles warm in your hands really quickly and the material from which they’re made has a tendency to retain body heat. It’s a lovely, little treat.

I bought a button that the Ernsts made a while back and I’m in love with it. I may not use it for it’s original purpose (a little purse) but I’ll definitely find something that will compliment it perfectly. I’m going to have to get a set of the smaller buttons to use on a sweater some day.

How adorable is THIS GUY?????

“Alfaaaalfa…. you will give me alfaaaaaaalfa…”

“Oh, sure… catch me with my tongue hanging out. Thanks a million.”

Next post: The Intrepid Fiberwizard and many critters. Hopefully stash pics as well.

M and I went to the Portland area to visit with his family leading up to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. Do you think that maybe these people look like they’re related?

M’s mom has this hanging in her dining room. It makes me laugh so hard every time I see it.

Because everyone needs a highly stylized painting of Moses… I’m an athiest but I might just be sent to hell just for laughing at this one.

Here’s a shot of the truck in Mt. Shasta. I usually do this drive at night and rarely have the opportunity to see the area. This was a nice treat. We came through this area in the late morning hours.

I was randomly snapping pictures while driving and I ended up with quite a few lovelies. Even though there’s a jersey barrier in this pic, you can see how wonderful this lake looked that day.

The night before this portion of the drive, we stayed a few miles south of Redding, CA. It’s sort of the gateway to the Mt. Shasta area. It’s on a lower elevation so, if you run into snow in Redding, you can’t go any further unless you’re well equipped with chains and the like. I personally will not venture into the area above Shasta, known as the Siskiyou, when it is snowing.

From Sacramento on up to Redding, there are issues with mosquitos. Mosquitos and Sachi don’t mix well as I’ve alluded to before. I always assumed that my reaction to mosquito bites was normal as my mom has a similar problem, albeit less severe. I’ve since learned that I must be allergic.

A couple years ago, M and I stopped in the Sacramento area and got some Wendy’s take out at about 3:00 AM. I had my dog, G’dai, with me so I wanted to let her out of the car. We sat on the curb, munching fries. I was wearing jeans and bobby socks. I was getting attacked mercilessly by the tiniest mosquitos I’ve ever seen… or not seen, as it were… It wasn’t terribly painful or anything. In fact, I felt no hurry to get back into the car or to cover up. It was only a minor annoyance.

We drove on through the night, cutting over to the coast to cruise through a couple towns in which I’d lived for a few years when I was very young. By the time we’d entered Oregon and checked into a hotel the next night, I was itchy like I’ve never been itchy before. The type where you can’t touch it because it’ll hurt. I had a stripe of red, angry, puffy welt (all of the welts merged into one huge one around each ankle), precisely where my skin was showing the previous night. I ended up with blisters from the swelling and spend about 3 days unable to do anything but put my feet up.

But all that was two years ago. I hadn’t had a similar problem since. Until now… Grrrr….

Night one of this trip ended in puffy feet, hands, toes and fingers. I was wearing flip-flops at dusk when we checked into the hotel. I was stuck in flip-flops for 4 days due to the mosquito assault. This time, however, the little blood-suckers were enormous. The size that makes you go “EW!” when you kill them. A total of 9 bites had my poor hands and feet in utter agony. My left hand swelled up so badly from only one bite that it bruised three days later and I was completely unable to wear my wedding ring that happens to be too large for me.

Those who know me well know that it isn’t a good road trip until I’ve done something to seriously injur myself. Usually, I consider mosquito bites enough of an injury when they cause blisters from swelling. But, nooooooo! I had to outdo myself this time. We somehow managed to drop the cat cage on my exposed, bug-bitten toes. That was an unhappy occurance. Oh, but it doesn’t end there!

The next morning, we schlepped the cat cage back down the stairs toward the car. There was a certain amount of urgency as the evil, blood-sucking deamons were still out and about. (Yes, I was bitten one more time before leaving.) So I hoist my end of the cage into the back of the car and go to jump in the side door to help lift and slide it the rest of the way in. Since M is holding on to about 30 lbs. of cats and 10 lbs. of litter, I rushed a bit. As I swing around the side of the car, I whacked my knee so hard on the corner of the rear-quarter panel that I crumpled into a ball on the edge of the car. I saw stars like I’d never seen before. I knew that it wasn’t broken but I couldn’t manage to communicate anything to my poor M and mother who were standing there watching me writhe around like I was possessed. But Mom knows me pretty well and wasn’t immediately concerned. M was still preoccupied with the cat cage, what with the weight of it and all…

The story continues to worsen, dear readers. You see, being the clumsy sort that I am, I have pretty much whacked my knee on the steering wheel column of my car on a daily basis. Some times are harder than others. So I pre-injured my right knee, making it ripe for the slightest tap on the steering column to cause great anguish for the next 24 hours. (That’s right. I AM a dork. Why do you ask?)

Once we arrived at our destination in Washington, I was all limpy-gimpy, trying to haul stuff inside from the truck. I gave up after 4 boxes. However, by the next morning, I was feeling quite well and able. After about 1/2 hour of hauling boxes, fate laughed at me in her usual way.

M took a terrible fall, backwards off the truck ramp. Most of him was fine but his left ankle was damaged beyond recognition. There’s no cast on him but we’re starting to think that he really does need x-rays since the swelling hasn’t gone down all the way and it’s been almost two weeks.

My brother saved my ass this day. When he came home from work, he busted his butt hauling boxes, a fridge and a washer/dryer set. Between him and me, we had everything unloaded and in the house in about 3 hours.

The next morning, I couldn’t move. I’m not kidding. I tried to slide out of bed and my knees said, “Ha! On the floor with you!” I dragged myself to the bathtub and soaked in hot water until the knees agreed to support my weight for a while. The next day was much the same.

As a matter of fact, my knees still haven’t fully recovered. Ladies and gentlemen… I beg you to think twice and counsel your children when they tell you they wish to participate in sports. 3 years of school and 5 years of local league volleyball have permenantly damaged me in ways I never knew possible.

I hope that, now that I’ll be looking for employment and things will be settling down, I’ll be able to get back to my once-daily, sometimes missing one day on the weekends blogging. I think my readership has fallen off as no one wants to hear about my moving drama.

Moving drama is over for the most part. Just a couple more pics of pretty stuff as a backdrop for the moving truck and a couple of short stories of pain. But, for now, here’s a pic of me and my fur-babies at the old house.

Also, here’s the promised pic as proof that I did, indeed, meet another knit-blogger within a week of arriving. This is Christina. Hers was one of the very first blogs I subscribed to when I started getting all obsessive about blogging and knitting (it happened at relatively the same time). I’ve been a loyal reader ever since.

I left in the “oversize load” banner because we’d just finished eating dinner and that’s certainly how I felt.

Aha! Everyone in the house is asleep except me. The perfect opportunity to blog like a sleepy idiot.

So, last day in LA. Mom and I were throwing away everything that I could reasonably purchase somewhere else and that I had not used in months. One of those things just happened to be my “all purpose” flour. Mom decided to dump it in the morning glories because the bag was heavy and trash space was becoming precious.

About an hour later, I was greeted by this. This is her, “But I’m a good girl. Where’s my cookie?” face.

It seems that Venti wants to stay dirty once she’s dirty. She didn’t like it when Grandma tried to clean her up
.

In a world where everything around you is changing, you often seek out the familiar.

“I have flour on my chin but mommy gave me a nice bone to chew on because I’m cute.”

The day of the move got started a little later than anticipated but I was just happy to be on our way. Driving through the Grapevine (North of LA on the 5 freeway) was a bit harrowing. The hills were on fire and the smoke was so thick in the air that it was quite unsettling. It’s a frightening feeling to see the flames unchecked and headed toward civilization.

But once through the hills, my mood improved. How could it not when I had Camus the Poodle as a travelling companion?

It was a really long day but the kitties did surprisingly well, all things considered. I made sure they had their own little space in which they could feel safe.

I’m posting this picture because the sight of my dad with a poodle on a leash is just really funny to me.

Here’s Pa. I stared at yellow for 4 days. I’m thinking I don’t like this color so much any more.

This was pretty much the view I had for those 4 days.

There’s something lovely about a sunset on I-5. I’ve seen so many in my life but This one was particularly sweet.

The cats were happy when the world around them stopped shaking for the night.

The dogs could really care less. They’re just happy their humans are with them.

But they were, indeed, tired.

Oh! How could I forget…. Here’s a smoosh-faced Halley.