Self-styled Retreat

Rose the Gypsy and I put together our own annual autumn retreat this month (we did it last year too).  

We had a number of activities during our week ...

History of Minneapolis walking tour with food.   I learned things about the Guthrie Theater which make me dislike the new building less.  But the old building was better.  One of my favorite local beers was featured at one of the stops too :)

We went to see great art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, including an exhibit of 18th century Instagram paintings :)

 We went on a Knitting Cruise sponsored by Darn Knit {Anyway}

And we went to an author talk and signing at The Workshop.  (Clara Parkes is awesome).

Yarn was acquired.  Rose the Gypsy was introduced to two more LYS: Amazing Threads and Linden Yarn.  

This is the super-special-edition Knit the River skein from the cruise:

Other shopping was done too, including another book of photos from a museum shop.

And shoes.  Quite a few pairs, as a matter of fact, including these special-edition Minneapolis Toms from the Mall of America ...

... as well as suede Toms in a favorite color.  Seriously, I needed teal shoes and Rose the Gypsy had to get Toms because believe it or not, she did not own a pair before.

I also found a new dishtowel.  I have to set a good example for my grandchildren, after all, by keeping a tidy kitchen.

We had special foods galore including (but not limited to) Murray's, Birchwood Cafe, Tavern on Grand and The Oasis.   

Oh, and we knit too.  I'll post about that later.

Busy With What?

I've been crazy busy, although I couldn't tell you with what. Just the usual ... working ... catching up with people. I sure haven't been knitting much.

For giggles, I did stumble upon this today - a new librarian figure from the Lego Minifigure Series 10*.  I have already emailed the Lego folks with a request to purchase 10 of them.  Wouldn't it be fun if I could have a lego librarian for each of my co-workers when I go to conference in October?  *Turns out they do not let you choose which figure you can purchase no matter how many you want :-(

The title of the book is a joke derived from the movie, Party Girl.  It's not a good movie, but I guess as a librarian I have to know about it.  Anyway, the party girl in question ends up working in a library.  When someone asks for On the Origin of Species, the protagonist hears the title as, Oranges and Peaches.... you gotta love those people at Lego.

My exciting news is that I really am going on a cruise.  Not just any cruise, but a knitting cruise.  Yes, Nautical Knitting with Franklin Habit and Melissa Leapman, here I come!  The Gypsy and I will be sharing a room, taking classes and exploring Belize City and Cozumel this coming December.  CAN'T WAIT!!!  Just for the record, I think I first decided I wanted to go on a cruise about 1970 when my mother went on one and talked about what a great time it was.   Don't know why I've never done it until now, but better late than never, right?

People's reaction to hearing I'm going on a knitting cruise has been mostly astonishment that there is such a thing (plus a couple of people who, when I was calling it a "cruise for knitters" heard it as a "cruise for *iggers" which does not make any sense because not only do I not use the N word, I would not qualify for such a cruise, so I call it a "knitting cruise" now).  

Also, today someone said she didn't realize there would be enough knitters for a whole ship.  I told her I thought that only a small portion of the ship would be knitters to which she replied, "Oh, so there will be normal people on the cruise too?"

Harumph!

Franconia Sculpture Park

A big part of my "daycation" last Tuesday was spent at the Franconia Sculpture Park.





It was fantastic!

Parting Shots

Happy New Year

I think I mentioned that we went to the coast for New Year's Eve. It's a different world on the coast, and of course, New Year's Eve comes with its own issues. I've never been big on celebrating this particular holiday, but we enjoyed the change in scenery.

There's a long walk and lots of beach between La Serena and Coquimbo with tons of restaurants, condos and hotels.
They have tsunami evacuation route signs which I don't believe I'd ever seen before; I haven't been here since the 2004 tsunami.
Sunsets are quite spectacular on the Pacific coast:
My pictures are not very good, but the fireworks were ... we could see three sets of fireworks from our hotel balcony.
Next morning always looks very different. There were lots of young people still out and about when we went down for breakfast; their day was just finishing up and ours just starting.

The beach in the morning can be a very cloudy. This year's start was no exception. It gives you time to think.

Odds and Ends

I finished a novel last night - Time and Again by Jack Finney. The copyright shows 1970 and the story line involves time travel to the 1880s; the protagonist is in New York City. It was a fun book that I got at my book club Christmas party last year. I was thinking about the differences between 1970 and 1880 and that got me going - thinking about the differences between 1970 and now. It was all kind of mind boggling considering the World Trade Center hadn't been built yet, among other things ... and then I heard a horse clop, clop, clop down the street and I thought about my own time travel...

Next morning I went out to play with my new camera and found this gigantic cactus - perfect for trying out various settings:




We went to Chapilca the other day to try to find homespun yarn (to no avail, alas!). It is a very dry place, except for where the river runs through it. The church is quaint and they've found an excellent use for old tires - a playground outside of the church:
I always love the use of English names for things; so many signs seem totally random:
(doesn't look big time to me!)

And this little shop in Vicuna - named Canabis with pirated Disney princesses painted on the side of the building:
Chile is one of the worst countries on the planet when it comes to pirated stuff - they flagrantly ignore most intellectual property laws.

And a few family shots for posterity ...

The In-laws:
Boy:
Girl:

The Sky

Girl-child and I went to the Mamalluca Observatory the other night - It was a lot of fun.

Because of the almost continuous clear sky here in the Elqui Valley there are a number of observatories, but this is the only one where tourists can sky-gaze. We heard a lot of mind-bending numbers in the talk which we would never be able to remember, but we also got to see Venus, nebulae, clusters and lots of other starry stuff. They also have a meteorite that was found in the Atacama desert and a book of Copernicus´letters:
This maybe gives you an idea of what the sky is like:
It´s a pity we can´t take pictures of the night sky because it is really quite spectacular.

We did spot a cloud yesterday:

And sometimes there is mist in the mountains in the morning:

But mostly it´s very sunny...

Land of Plenty

Peralillo

NOW I'm on vacation! This is what I woke up to this morning:

To give you an idea of the length of the trip, this is how far I got on the sock that I cast on in MSP airport when we left Friday morning: The colors are way off, but that doesn't really matter for my purposes today - I want to impress on everybody that I've done the leg, the heel and I'm halfway down the foot of the first sock. A pair usually takes me 4-6 weeks to make.

It was a long trip.

For reasons I will not go into here, we took a bus from Santiago to Vicuña which is about 7-8 hours. Now, the bus was actually a lot more comfortable than the plane. The bathrooms on the plane are nicer though. I guess you can't have everything. At any rate, we got here pretty late Saturday. At some point I looked at my ankles and was quite alarmed by their deformed appearance. I am happy to say that now they're almost back to normal .... have to keep in mind on the way back that little ankle excersises are very important...

And for those of you who were weirded out by the first world appearance of everything here, I just want you to know we've stayed traditional with the toaster: And, as Girl-child pointed out this morning, here the eggs come with feathers:

Off to the pool again - gotta get those ankles back!

P.S. Broadband here is not too wide, so if anyone sees important news on the MN Senate seat, please e-mail me.