Knit and Bead Times

Finding My Father's Family

2011-07-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 7/15/11

Yes, I know I haven't blogged in quite a long time, but I have to return to blogging at least long enough to talk about a momentous life event that recently happened to me. Just a few months ago I was watching the short-lived tv show "Find My Family" and envying the participants who were introduced to long-lost parents, siblings, or children. I never dreamed that I would soon have my own such meeting, and without help from tv producers.

For almost 60 years, my biological father was the great mystery of my life. I knew that he left for Europe shortly after I was born, in 1949. As far as I knew, my mother and I never heard from him after that. My mother and I went to live with her parents, my grandparents, in Passaic, New Jersey. Even at a young age, and even though I didn't remember my father, I felt his absence in my life.

As I grew older, I would sometimes ask my mother questions about him, but it was clear to me that she did not want to talk about him. He became a forbidden topic, which only fueled my curiosity. I learned a few things about him from my aunt, my mother's sister, who had mostly negative things to say about him. Among the few things I learned over the years: He was a writer who could not support his family financially. He was Jewish (like the rest of my family), but anti-Zionist and strongly anti-Communist. He loved dogs. He demanded cream in his coffee. According to my aunt, he was wanted for mail fraud.

When I was 6, my mother met and married my stepfather Al, a Holocaust survivor from Poland. I took his last name, unofficially. We moved to New York City. My brother Larry was born a couple of years later. At the beginning of every school year, my teacher would have to be told why the last name I was using was different from my official name in the class roster. I always dreaded these explanations and asked my mother to come to school to have the talk with the teacher. When my stepfather adopted me a few years later, the last name problem was solved.

Life with my stepfather was financially comfortable, but I was an unhappy child and later an unhappy teenager. I continued to be obsessively curious about my father, and felt powerless to learn anything more about him. I was close to my mother's large family: her parents, her 5 siblings and their spouses, and my cousins. I was especially close to my cousin Jeffrey, whom I've written about earlier in this blog.

Years passed. I went to the University of Michigan for graduate school, met Jim, married him, lived with him in the Boston area for 18 years, moved with him to the Bay area. Finally, in 2005, shortly after the death of my stepfather, I started seriously searching for information about my biological father. Maybe it was my stepfather's death that made me feel freer to do this. Jim had a trial membership in ancestry.com and was doing some genealogical research on his own family. I used his account to search for my father, and found my first breakthrough: A record from the 1930 US census, showing my father and his parents living in Worcester, MA. He was listed as 16 years old at the time.

The census record was a breakthrough in several ways. As soon as I saw my father's mother's name, Fae (spelled with the same unusual spelling as my name), I knew for sure that I had found the right family. I knew where my name came from (my mother had been vague about this). And I knew something about my paternal grandparents. I also found my father's middle initial, J. Armed with that single letter, I was able to find a few things about him on the web. Without the J, his name was common enough that I hadn't found anything useful. With the J, I found an article about Israel that he had written for a Catholic magazine called the Sign in 1953. I emailed the archives of the Sign, and the archivist was nice enough to photocopy and send me a bunch of my father's articles.

A few months later, I felt that I had found all I could via the web, and I hired an investigator to look for my father. At this point I didn't know whether he had ever come back to live in the United States after the early 1950's. My experience with the investigator was frustrating in ways that I won't detail here. But she did find some results, 3 cousins of my father. Unfortunately they are from a branch of the family that did not have contact with the other branches, so they did not know about my father. Still, it was very nice to be in touch with them; they were my only link to my father's family. One of them, a neurosurgeon in southern California, sent me a handwritten family tree from the early 1950's which had my name on it. The other two, brothers who were retired from their dental practice in New York, met Jim and me at a Hungarian Jewish cemetery in Queens where the family has a plot. There I saw the graves of my grandparents.

I saw that my grandmother's maiden name was Jones. I had always sort of known that my middle name was Jones, but I used Joan instead because Jones didn't make sense to me. Now I was even more sure where my name came from. And the name Jones was to figure prominently in the continuation of my search, a few years later. It took me much too long to realize that the J. in my father's middle name stood for Jones.

The investigator told me that my father had died in upstate New York in the 1980's. She suggested that I apply to the state of New York for a death certificate. She even mentioned the town Pearl River. Case closed, as far as she was concerned. But I never considered it closed. New York State could not find a death certificate. I even went to Pearl River, which is not far from my cousin Jeffrey's house in New Jersey. We went through issues of the local newspaper from the 1980's, and found a family with a similar name but different spelling, but no evidence of my father or his death. I became convinced that the investigator's information was wrong.

And that's how things stood until New Year's day of this year, when I decided once again to search ancestry.com for my father's name. This time I found the best breakthrough so far, a U.S. State Department report of a U.S. citizen who had died abroad. The citizen was my father, and he had died in Germany in 1958, when I was 9 and he was 44. And, he had a wife in Germany. The facts in this document matched what I knew about my father: a journalist, living in Germany, born in the correct year. His aunt was listed as a contact in the U.S., and her name was on the family tree I had received from his cousins. His last known address in the U.S. turned out to be the address of the Sign magazine, for which he wrote.

I could hardly believe that I had found this information. At last, I knew what had happened to my father. He had settled in Germany, had a family there, and never returned to live in the U.S. And he had died very young, age 44, of a heart attack. The fact that I was only 9 when he died became, in my mind, a rationale for why he had never tried to contact me. Maybe he thought I was too young. Or maybe he had tried to contact me and my mother didn't allow it.

I immediately started asking myself the logical next questions: Was his German wife still alive? Did they have any children, who would be my half siblings? And how would I ever find out the answers from 6000 miles away, and without speaking much German?

This turned out to be much easier than I ever dreamed. One day I did a google search for my father's name, using "Jones" instead of just "J" as the middle name. I found only one hit, but it was an amazing one. It appeared to be a death announcement for someone with the same name as my father, who had died at age 50 in 2002. The dates were wrong for this to be my father, but I strongly suspected it must be his son (even though Jews never name their children after themselves; it is considered bad luck to name a child after a living person). The death announcement had the names of four siblings of the deceased man. None of the siblings had my father's last name, but one of them, Leslie, had the middle name Jones. At this point I knew I had found something big, but I didn't know whether these people were my half- or step-siblings.

I found three of the four siblings on Facebook. Their names were unusual enough, and the information I found on Facebook seemed likely enough, that I was pretty sure I had found the right people. I sent a Facebook message to each of them, explaining that I was looking for information about my father. I could hardly sleep that night, and I thought that due to the time difference I would have answers by morning.

I didn't. I waited a week, not wanting to bother people, and worrying that they didn't want to have contact with me. Finally I emailed one of the siblings at her business website, which she had listed on her Facebook page. The next day I had an answer. She was a daughter of my father's German wife's second marriage, and she told me that Leslie was, indeed, my half brother. Later that day I got a message from Leslie himself, confirming that he and I were half siblings. It was his older brother, also my half brother, who had died at age 50, also of a heart attack.

Leslie and I began an email correspondence that started with exchanging what little information each of us had about our father. Ironically, Leslie was only a year old when our father died, so he knew as little about him as I did. I scanned and sent to Leslie our father's articles from the Sign magazine. I also sent him the U.S. census page and the State Department report by which I learned of our father's death. He sent me a good picture of our father, scans of his passports (showing his many trips within Europe to cover stories), and pictures of our father's typewriter, which Leslie still has. We also exchanged enough personal information and general conversation that I could tell that Leslie has a fine sense of humor, and that I liked him.

On June 24, Jim and I flew to Hamburg to meet Leslie in person. The picture at the top of this post is of our first meeting, at the airport. From the very beginning, I felt more at ease with Leslie than I ordinarily would with someone I was meeting for the first time. I soon felt as if I had known him for years. It helped that we had exchanged all of that email before meeting in person. Jim and I stayed at the house that Leslie shares with one of his sisters, her husband, and their 3 cats. He also met us in Barcelona the following weekend so that we could spend more time together.

I have been amazed at the parallels between Leslie's life and mine. Neither of us knew much about our father. Each of us was adopted by our stepfather and took our stepfather's name. Leslie's family has many ties to the U.S., and they all speak fluent English. The family lived in San Francisco in the early 1960's; his stepfather was a German diplomat who was stationed there. They also lived in London, a city I love and have visited many times. Leslie loves to visit New York, where I grew up. And both of my living half brothers, Larry and Leslie, were born in the same month, April 1957.

I still can hardly believe that my curiosity about my father finally resulted in my finding his German family. Ironically, without the early deaths of my father and his first son (my other half brother), I would not have found Leslie. And the web made this all possible. Also the name Jones, which I decided was a gift from my father to his three children, to enable us to find each other.

Wrapping Up the Blogging Year

2009-12-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 12/31/09

I haven't been posting much recently, at least in part because I haven't been doing much travel. Since returning from the Yellowstone/Teton trip in early September, I've made only two short in-state trips. But on this last day of 2009 (and according to most, last day of the 00's decade), I thought I should post a bit about what I've been up to for the last few months.

In early October I attended the Bead Unique Retreat in Lake Tahoe with 3 friends from my beading group. We had a great time. We enjoyed classes with 3 wonderful teachers, shared a suite and beaded together while watching season 2 of the Closer on DVD, and ate a lot of good food. It was nice to see some snow on our last day, but even nicer that most of it was gone in time for us to drive home.

Jim and I decided to spend Thanksgiving weekend in Mendocino, a picturesque small town on the north coast (often said to resemble a New England village, something I don't really agree with). Since we moved to California, Thanksgiving has presented us with a dilemma. We don't like to travel for the holiday, especially not all the way to the east coast, where most of our family is. When we lived in the Boston area we had a great group of friends, mostly single and without children, who also lived far from their families. We would invite them to our house for what we called the "orphans' Thanksgiving", and have a wonderful time. Here in California, we haven't developed that type of friendship circle, and most of the friends we have are busy with their own families for the holiday. At a time in our lives when, if we had children, they and our grandchildren might be coming to see us, we are left with the choice of either making a turkey just for us, or going somewhere and having Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant. This year we chose the latter.

We've been to Mendocino several times before, and while the area is beautiful, I don't love it as much as other coastal areas such as Cambria or Pacific Grove. Like Cambria, it's very isolated. You get there via either a gorgeous, slow and winding trip up the coastal Route 1, or a slightly faster and also pretty trip through the woods on Route 128 (not to be confused with the Boston beltway). The town of Mendocino has never been lively; we spent new year's eve there once and didn't find anyone on the streets after 9 p.m. This time the town seemed especially small and unexciting to me. I think I was a bit depressed about the Thanksgiving-in-a-restaurant decision, although our dinner at the Albion River Inn was very good. We took some nice walks, visited Fort Bragg (a nearby, slightly larger town that has some funky stores), and spent some quiet time reading and beading in front of the fire in our apartment at Cypress Cove, a mile south of Mendocino, with a beautiful view of the town.

None of this should be read as regret of the childless life that we chose, or of our move to California. Most of the time, I love my life, and I feel very fortunate that it's turned out the way it has. 2009 was our first full year with both of us retired, and that's been a success. We've developed an enjoyable routine for times when we're at home, and managed to do some type of exercise almost every day (usually just walking in the hills near our house). For the first time in our lives, we set a budget for ourselves, and managed to keep to it through the year without feeling deprived. (Believe it or not, in the last few days of the year I've been struggling to spend what's left over in my crafts budget, ordering some beads and some yarn but still ending the year with a surplus.)

On December 24, 2008 I posted that at the end of my first year as a blogger, the unique visitor count had just passed 1000. Today it is at 3362, which means an average of 6-7 visitors per day for the year. Maui-related searches are still the most common way that people find this blog, and it's near the top of the Google results for searches such as "maui yarn", "maui beads", and "maui knitting". Searches related to New York's bead district have also been popular this year, and also Pat Riley, the Cambria handpainted clothing artist, who recently announced her retirement. There are also lots of visitors from Google Images.

As we prepare to start the next decade, I wish the readers of this blog a very happy new year, and a wonderful 2010.

Better Late Than Never: Yellowstone/Teton Highlights

2009-11-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

Dateline: The Western U.S., 8/20/09 - 9/1/09

Melody was worried about me because I haven't posted to my blog for so long. She wondered if I had died or was in triple traction. No need to worry; everything is fine. Sometimes I just get into a non-blogging mood. But I have been intending to post about our trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks. So, better late than never, here are some highlights from the trip.

Jim and I drove to Yellowstone and met my brother Larry, sister-in-law Mary Beth, and nephew Max, who had flown from New York. I wanted to drive because I had never been to this part of the country, and wanted to see it up close. Idaho, Wyoming and Montana have now been added to my list of "states I've been in". We took three and a half days to get to Yellowstone, driving across Nevada, through parts of Idaho, and through a small corner of Montana. (We couldn't work out spending a night in Montana, which I wanted to do.) In Twin Falls, Idaho, we walked from our motel to the Perrine Bridge and got a beautiful view of the Snake River (picture above).

Our first stop in Yellowstone was to see some of the geysers, one of the many features that make the park unique.

The next day, we saw two eruptions of Old Faithful, the most famous geyser of all.

"Bison jams" are common on the park roads. Sometimes bison would walk onto the road, but more often people would stop their cars in the middle of the road to take pictures of the bison at the side of the road. It was fascinating to see the bison up close, but the jams added travel time to our sightseeing. (Yellowstone is huge, and to see the sights you have to do a lot of driving. The problem was compounded by the closure of several sections of the main road.) On our first day in the park, we were late for our 35th anniversary dinner because of a bison jam. And since we didn't have cell phone service, we couldn't let the family know we were going to be late.

Led by Mary Beth, an avid hiker, we took a 6.5-mile back country hike. I was tired and there were some steep sections, but with the help of improvised walking sticks, we made it. We heard that 90% of visitors to Yellowstone never get out of their cars, much less take a hike like this.

On a cowboy cookout, we rode in covered wagons pulled by horses to a picnic area and ate a delicious steak dinner. The cowboy who rode in our wagon told us the story of Truman Everts, a member of one of the first expeditions to explore Yellowstone in 1870, who became separated from his group and survived (barely) on his own in the park for 37 days. We were fascinated by the story, and I later read Everts' book about the adventure. (I've always had a morbid fascination with survival stories.) After his rescue, Everts ended his career by working in a post office in Maryland.

Grand Teton Park, while only about 30 miles from Yellowstone, has a completely different feel: less wild and rugged, but equally beautiful. We took a raft float trip on the Snake River, and enjoyed beautiful views of the mountains.

Instead of staying in the park, we stayed in the town of Jackson, Wyoming, about 20 miles away. One day I took a break from the park and went shopping in town while Jim did some horseback riding.

On our way home we stopped in Salt Lake City, Utah, where we caught the reflection of some of the Temple Square buildings in the windows of Abravanel Hall (home of the Utah Symphony).

Walking in New York

2009-09-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

Dateline: New York, 7/16/09 - 7/28/09
At home, I usually think of walking as a chore, something I have to do to get my exercise. Even though the weather and the views from our neighborhood are always pleasant, I still have to talk myself into every walk. In New York, though, walking is not a chore, it's a way of life. It's a means of transportation, a way of getting where you want to go. Even when we took the subway, which we did a lot (we got our money's worth out of a two-week unlimited ride MetroCard), there were always walks to and from the subway. And there were stairs to get into and out of the subway stations.

When I'm in New York, I usually don't gain weight even though I eat more than usual, because of all the walking I do. While we were there, an article in the New York Times said that Manhattanites are, on the average, thinner than people who live in other parts of the city, state, and even the country, and walking was the explanation most people gave. I often think I would have had less of a weight problem if I had not moved away from New York.

The apartment we rented this year, on Barrow Street in the West Village, was the best location we've had in the years we've been renting Manhattan apartments, and it was great for walking. The Village is mostly residential, and is quieter than other parts of Manhattan. It has lots of restaurants and interesting shops. Unlike most of Manhattan, which is laid out in a grid of numbered streets and avenues, the Village has lots of winding (sometimes confusing) streets. Somehow, in the Village, West 4th St. manages to intersect West 11th St. and also West 13th St., something that would never happen in the more grid-like parts of Manhattan.

Hudson St. was the main street of our neighborhood, with a post office, lots of restaurants, and a bagel bakery where we shopped for breakfast. D'Agostino's, the grocery store, was two blocks away. At home we always drive to the grocery store, but in New York it's routine to walk, and to carry your groceries home. We were within walking distance of Union Square to the north and SoHo to the south. On one Village walk I discovered a street named after Dave Van Ronk, one of my favorite 60's folksingers. I realized we lived around the corner from new Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose Bedford St. condo had been in the news, and one day we walked to see the outside of her building.

At home I would never set off on a 3-mile walk; my usual walking loops through the hills are 1 mile and 1.5 miles. But one day I used Gmaps Pedometer to trace my New York walk, and found that I had walked 3 miles to go to places I was interested in: to the Union Square area to the Lion Brand Yarn Studio (which was closed when I got there); then to Union Square itself to see the farmer's market; a few blocks downtown and east to get a manicure; down University Place to get coffee at Oren's Daily Roast; lunch at the Peanut Butter & Co. Sandwich Shop; then back home. Later that day we visited my mother in Forest Hills, Queens, which involved a subway ride, and walks to and from the subway stations on each end. All in a day's walk in New York.

We also did some New York walking that was less practical and more touristy. I've already posted about walking the High Line, the new park on a former elevated railway line. After a dim sum brunch in Chinatown with our friends Paul and Randi, who had come from the Boston area to attend our party, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and to the now-trendy Brooklyn neighborhood DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). We also walked two stretches of the Hudson River walk, one downtown near our apartment, and the other uptown. (In the uptown segment, we found that most of the path was reserved for bicycles, leaving such a narrow pedestrian path that we couldn't walk 3 abreast, making conversation difficult.)

The touristy walks are okay, but my favorite type of New York walking is either just wandering the streets, going into stores and coffee shops, or walking to get to the places I want to go.

Painting Shoes with Sassy Feet

2009-09-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

Dateline: San Francisco, 9/13/09

My friend Vera talked me into taking a workshop on shoe painting and embellishing. She thought it would be fun because both of us are crafters (we're both members of the South Bay Knitters) and both of us love shoes. (Yes, I love shoes, but not as much as Vera does; she has a whole room in her house devoted to them.) The workshop was taught by Margot Silk Forrest of Sassy Feet, and was held at the Sewing Workshop in San Francisco.

We supplied the shoes and Margot supplied everything else we needed. She has a beautiful line of paints and glitters, plus beads, fibers, chains and other embellishments. I was worried that I didn't have the type of creativity needed to decide what to do with the shoes, since I wouldn't be working from a pattern, but only from my imagination. That turned out not to be an issue; I just chose colors I liked and started painting.

I managed to turn two old, drab pairs of shoes that I hadn't worn in years into something colorful and bright that makes me happy to wear. The first pair was Arche, a French brand that I used to buy a lot in the 80's. I painted over the now-drab purple with lime green topped with glitter, and painted the trim rust.

Then I took a dirty beige pair (I don't know why I ever bought them because I hate beige) and turned them into a multi-colored purple and gold. I also put glitter on a scuffed purse to try to hide the scuff marks.

It really was a fun day. I don't think I'll take up shoe painting as my next hobby, but I would be happy to do some more if Margot has another workshop in this area.

New York's Bead District

2009-08-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Dateline: New York, 7/16/09 - 7/28/09

The area around Sixth Avenue in the upper 30's in Manhattan could be called the Bead District, although it's really part of the Garment District. On Sixth Avenue between 36th and 39th, and on 37th between Fifth and Sixth, it seems as if almost every store sells beads. These stores have an overwhelming inventory. A lot of them are wholesalers, but most also sell to individual customers like me. I spent parts of two days exploring these stores, and below are my favorites.

Fun2Bead has its own line of reasonably priced crystals, in addition to selling Swarovski and lots of other products. Personally, I can't see a difference between their crystals and Swarovski's, except that Fun2Bead's range of colors is smaller, and they don't have the beautiful AB (Aurora Borealis) finishes. Mary Beth and I each bought a lot of crystal bicones in a variety of colors.

I didn't actually buy anything at M&J Trimming, but I was fascinated by browsing there. They have some beads, and an incredible inventory of sequins, ribbons, rhinestones, etc. I imagine that this store is frequented by fashion designers and people creating costumes for Broadway shows.

Margola is a big importer of Czech beads. They were discontinuing a line of Czech pearls, and were selling them at half of their already-low prices. I bought a bunch, and then a few days later went back and bought a second bunch, knowing that my beading friends would be happy to take some of them off my hands. I still have enough pearls left for a lifetime of beading.

Mary Beth and I also took a trip to Bergenfield, New Jersey to visit Beads By Blanche, which is a fantastic store for beadweavers like us. The store is small but well organized, and has lots of seed beads and crystals. It was there that I finally started buying rivolis, round crystal stones without holes. My friends in the South Bay Bead Arts Guild love to use rivolis, which they incorporate into jewelry by bezeling, using seed beads to surround and "capture" the stone. I've resisted the rivoli craze until recently, and now I'm addicted. I bought Laura McCabe's book about using rivolis and I'm making earrings with them.

Celebrating 35/60/65

2009-08-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Dateline: New York, 7/18/09

In August, 1974, two important events happened. President Nixon resigned. And two weeks later, Jim and I got married. Not that there's any relationship between the two events. But I always think of them together.

I had turned 25 a month before our wedding, and Jim turned 30 a month after. So every 5 years we've had 3 milestone events, with our ages and the number of years of our marriage all divisible by 5. Every time this has happened we've talked about having a party. This is the year we actually did it. I turned 60 on July 17, Jim will be 65 on September 27, and our 35th anniversary is on August 23.

We had the party in New York because a lot of my family is there. We also invited a few east coast friends. 21 of us gathered at Gramercy Tavern for lunch on July 18. We had never been to the restaurant before, but we knew it would be good because it's one of a group of restaurants owned by chef Danny Meyer, and our meals at his other restaurants have been wonderful. The restaurant didn't disappoint us. The food was excellent, the service impeccable, and the private dining room beautiful. My cousin Jeffrey was the toastmaster, and a few other guests, including my mother, made very nice speeches.

After the party we walked back to our temporary apartment in the Village, accompanied by some of the guests who had come from out of town for the occasion. We ended the day with a walk on the High Lin e, a new city park built on an old elevated rail line. It's a very nice walk, with beautiful plantings, chairs to sit in, and great views.

Now, how can we top this in 5 years, when it's time for 40/65/70?

(Many thanks to Mary Beth, my sister-in-law, for taking beautiful pictures at the party. The 3 non-wedding pictures are: My mother (right) with her sister, my aunt Roz; me with my friend Joan, from Hunter College High School class of '67, and her husband Jeff; and Jim (middle) with Helene and my cousin Jeffrey.)

Where I'm From

2009-07-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 7/9/09

When people ask Jim the simple question, "Where are you from?", he doesn't know how to answer. He was born in Pittsburgh, but lived there only a short time. His father's corporate job transferred him every few years, to Philadelphia, Cleveland, and then to the Los Angeles area, where Jim lived during his high school years. I met Jim at graduate school at the University of Michigan, and he lived in Ann Arbor longer than any other place up to then. He just isn't rooted enough in any place to feel that he's "from" there.

I know where I'm from. Even though I haven't lived there since 1971, and even though I was actually born across the Hudson River in New Jersey, I've always felt that I'm a New Yorker. It's interesting that I feel such a strong New York identity, because I lived there only 16 years, from ages 6 - 22. We lived in the Boston area longer than that, yet I don't feel "from" there. Since 1971 I've been back to New York maybe once a year on average, usually for no longer than a week at a time. But still I feel like a New Yorker.

I thought I had escaped having a New York accent, until a few months ago when I was in the tiny town of Coupeville, WA, and a woman in a store asked me where I was from. I said "San Francisco", because when you're traveling, it usually makes sense to interpret the "from" question as "where do you live now?". She didn't buy it. She said, "Who are you kidding? You're from New York!". She herself had moved from New York to Coupeville a few years ago, and she recognized my accent.

I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had never left New York. I would have stayed closer to family and old friends. I probably would not have met Jim, but would I have met someone else? Would I have moved from job to job, as I did in real life, or would I have found a job to absorb me for a lifetime? I envy my brother Larry and my sister-in-law Mary Beth, who have lived pretty much their whole lives in New York, met there, and are now raising their son there.

Several years ago, when Jim and I started to think about retirement, I started realizing how much I miss New York. I wanted to think about moving back there. Jim, though, generally doesn't like cities, and would never consider living in New York. We decided on a compromise. We would visit New York for a couple of weeks a year, and I could pretend that I lived there. Since then we've done that 3 or 4 times, renting apartments in different neighborhoods in Manhattan -- TriBeCa, the Upper East Side, Midtown. I grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, but now I insist on staying in Manhattan. I love the excitement of being there, the idea that I can walk out of the apartment and find anything I want: great restaurants, Broadway shows, excellent coffee, real bagels, beads, yarn, anything.

And that's where we'll be for two weeks, starting next week. This time we're renting a studio apartment in the West Village, which should be a great neighborhood to live in. We'll be seeing family, reconnecting with some old friends, hosting a party (more about that later), doing a lot of walking. I'll get my New York "fix", and hopefully it will last another year.

What Happens in Vegas...

2009-04-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Las Vegas, NV, 3/25/09 - 3/30/09

Whoever invented that slogan for Las Vegas probably didn't have beading in mind. But beading was the reason that Jim and I drove to Las Vegas. It was the second annual BeadAway, organized by Brea Bead Works in the Los Angeles area. I enjoyed last year's BeadAway in Hawaii very much, and although I thought Las Vegas was an odd venue for beading, I was eager to attend.

The drive was an all-day event, about 10 hours including a stop for lunch in Bakersfield. We ate at the 24th Street Cafe, where we had also eaten on a previous trip. They serve breakfast all day, and the waffles with peanut butter, coconut and fresh fruit were surprisingly good. After lunch, a long drive through the desert, and then we finally arrived. One minute you're driving through empty desert, and the next minute you see gaudy hotels and billboards, and you know you're approaching Las Vegas.

My first visit to Las Vegas was in 1973 for, believe it or not, an American Library Association convention. At that time I thought that Las Vegas was the height of vulgarity. My opinion hasn't changed much over the years. Nothing in Las Vegas is real. Hotels pretend to be New York, Paris, New Orleans, Venice, ancient Egypt. There's a fake Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, pyramid. The picture above was taken at an indoor shopping mall that pretends to be an outdoor city. We were having dinner on a "patio" that was outside the restaurant, but still inside the mall. I was so disoriented by this that I suggested to Jim that maybe it was too cold to eat outside, and we should move inside.

Even the slot machines, the only form of gambling that I indulge in, are no longer real. I used to enjoy changing $10 for a bucket of quarters, putting them one by one into the machine, and pulling the lever. If I won a few quarters the machine would spew them out. Now the machines are all computerized, and the cheapest ones take dollar bills. You bet by pressing buttons. If you win, you can press the "cash out" button, which causes the machine to print a receipt for your winnings. You take the receipt to a different machine that gives you cash.

Las Vegas is famous for its buffets and its shows, and we partook of both. Love, the Cirque du Soleil's Beatles show, was amazing. Incredible acrobatics were accompanied by recordings of the Beatles. Before the show we ate at the buffet at the Mirage hotel, which is really 11 different buffets in one, with 11 stations serving different types of food. I concentrated on the Asian offerings -- sushi, noodle soup, etc. -- and then went on to barbecue and Mexican food. Meanwhile, Jim was eating a roast beef dinner.

Aside from my gripes about Las Vegas, I really enjoyed the BeadAway. Scott and Wendy Remmers, the owners of Brea Bead Works, did a great job organizing it. They made sure we had wonderful teachers, a lot of door prizes, great snacks during breaks, and a "mini-store" run by the owners of Out on a Whim, where we could shop during the retreat. They chartered a bus to transport attendees from the Los Angeles area. On the first day of the retreat, we took the Bead Bus for a shopping day at three Las Vegas bead stores. All of the stores gave us gifts, snacks, and generous discounts. Of course I found things to buy in all three. We stopped for lunch at a unique restaurant, Hash House a Go Go, which serves what they call "twisted farm food". Some of the beaders ordered the BBBLT, so named because it's a gigantic BLT sandwich with a huge amount of bacon, served with an enormous knife stuck in the sandwich. I regretted not ordering it, and when Jim and I went back to the Hash House for dinner a couple of days later, the BBBLT was not on the dinner menu. Jim had another of their specialties, friend chicken with waffles and maple syrup.

The beading classes, of course, were one of the main reasons I went to the BeadAway. When I arrived for my first class, Flowers & Buds bracelet with Susan Barrett, I was surprised to find that I was the only student. The pattern uses right angle weave, a basic stitch which I have done before, and then embellishes the bracelet with Swarovski sliders and other crystals. I caught on quickly, and at lunchtime Susan and I agreed that we would both take the afternoon off. I finished the bracelet after I got home.

My other two classes were a lot more challenging. One was a kumihimo class with Sheilah Cleary, the author of several beading books. Unlike the previous kumihimo I've done, this project used a marudai, a wooden kumihimo stand, instead of the foam disk. The project, a cute necklace called "Here Fishy, Fishy" involved braiding 8 strands of beaded thread, taking the braid off the marudai and stringing the fish and bubble beads, then braiding some more and adding the clasp. The day was somewhat stressful for me because I was renting the marudai and was not sure I wanted to buy one, so the pressure was on to finish the project during the class. I did managed to finish, at least to a point where I no longer needed the marudai and could complete the project at home, but only by staying after class and then returning to the "Bead the Night Away" event after dinner. Sheilah was extremely patient and generous with her time.

My last class was with Cindy Pankopf, a designer whose classes I enjoyed at last year's BeadAway. Cindy has developed a technique called bead maille, which combines seed beads with rings and other metal components. Her book about bead maille is scheduled to be published next year. The Box Chain Bracelet is a bead maille project that uses 3-dimensional right angle weave to build what Cindy called "apartments" around the metal rings. Although I have right angle weave experience, I found combining it with the rings to be a challenge. As Cindy explained it, the project is easier for people with "geometry brains" than with "algebra brains", and my brain is definitely closer to algebra than to geometry. Cindy was also very patient, working with each student individually. I am currrently still working on the bracelet and feel more comfortable with the technique than I did at first. Maybe my brain is finally learning some geometry.

After Cindy's class ended on Sunday afternoon, Jim and I were ready for the drive back. We planned to stop in Lancaster for the night and then go to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve the next day. The traffic on I-15 was so slow that several times we thought there must be an accident ahead, but we learned that it was just the normal Sunday afternoon Las Vegas to Los Angeles traffic. The wind was especially strong that day in the desert, and dust was blowing everywhere. I couldn't get Joni Mitchell's song about Amelia Earhart out of my mind:

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

When we stopped at a rest stop, it was difficult to get out of the car because the wind kept trying to close the car doors. We ended up stopping for the night in Victorville, about 100 miles from where we had planned to stop. I thought of another verse from Amelia:

I pulled into the cactus tree motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms

The song is on Joni's 1976 album Hejira, which describes a drive she took across the country. We did pull into a motel, but a Travelodge, and I did shower off the dust. For some reason, I chose this time to join Twitter, using our laptop with the motel's wireless, and my first "tweet" was the quote from Joni about showering off the dust.

The next day, the wind had died down a bit, but the poppy reserve was still cold and windy. The poppies were not yet in full bloom, but there were enough of them to be beautiful. After seeing the poppies and walking a bit we finished the drive home.

I look forward to next year's BeadAway, although I hope it's not in Las Vegas again.

Kumihimo in Coupeville

2009-03-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Coupeville, WA, 3/9/09 - 3/12/09

My first experience with kumihimo, a Japanese braiding technique, was in a class taught by Candace Eisner Strick at Stitches West last year. Since then I have made several basic braids, either using beads in the braids or adding a pendant that I bought. When BraidersHand announced that they were having workshops taught by Makiko Tada, a noted Japanese kumihimo artist, I decided to attend a workshop and learn more about this technique.

Snow was on my mind as I flew into Seattle and rented a car for the drive to Coupeville, which is on Whidbey Island. Snow was predicted for the area and it was making me nervous. I hate driving in snow; that's one of the reasons we moved from New England to California. And I had an itinerary planned for the day. I was going to take the land route to Coupeville, stopping at various yarn and bead stores, including in Anacortes, a nice town that we visited a few years ago and that has a great yarn store.

As I drove to my first stop, Beads and Beyond in Bellevue, the weather was cloudy but otherwise fine. The store has been merged with a quilting store but still has a nice selection of beads. As I drove up I-5 toward Everett, where I wanted to visit Great Yarn s (a store whose booth I've always enjoyed at Stitches but never seen in person), the snow started, and quickly turned into what I would call a blizzard. At the same time, unrelated to the snow, the portable gps that I had brought from home with me stopped working. I decided to cancel the shopping and get to the Whidbey Island ferry, which was not far away, as quickly as I could. I got off the highway at the next exit to see if I could get the gps working, and when I couldn't, I used my trusty iPhone to get Google Maps directions to the ferry.

As I drove, the snow got worse and worse. I started to think that I wouldn't get to Whidbey that day at all, would have to find a place to stay on the mainland. Then I turned off the highway and onto the road that leads to the ferry, and the snow vanished as suddenly as it had started. Everything was clear, there was hardly any snow on the ground, and I never saw any more snow the entire trip! I spent the short ferry ride trying to calm down after my drive through the snow.

Whidbey is a lot more rural than I expected. Coupeville is a picturesque small town. The "downtown" consists of about two blocks of Front Street, with a beautiful view of Penn Cove. There are some nice stores, including two bead stores, but their hours are so limited that it wasn't easy to get to them while taking an all-day workshop. Coupeville Yarns kindly stayed open for us so that we could go there one afternoon after the workshop.

Makiko is a lovely person and a very good teacher. She speaks excellent English. She has traveled the world teaching kumihimo. Makiko told us that she is proud of having been a student of a Living National Treasure, and our class decided that Makiko was our own Living National Treasure.

Our workshop was on making braids on the foam disk and foam plate, the simplest kumihimo devices. Makiko is the designer of the disk and plate, and she also has a new book out on braids that can be made on them. It's amazing how many different patterns can be made. Makiko brought meter-long strands of acrylic yarn in all the colors of the rainbow for us to use. That was a very good teaching device, because the acrylic was easy to work with and allowed us to focus on the patterns and techniques. The first two pictures above are some of Makiko's samples from the book; the third is the braids that I made during the workshop.

The third day of the workshop was devoted to making a scarf of organza ribbon. We pinned the ribbon to a macrame board and hand wove the strands in a diagonal pattern. The scarves look beautiful but are somewhat stiff to wear. Softer ribbon would have been more difficult to weave with.

The coffee at the hotel was not very good, but luckily I found out about Local Grown, a coffee house and marine supply store on Coupeville pier. They had strong French roast coffee, just the way I like it, and wonderful house-baked scones. I became a regular customer for the three days I was in town.

Since I had missed my shopping on the way to Coupeville, I decided to take the land route back, even though I was leaving at 4 after a full day of workshop. I was able to get to Ana-Cross Stitch in Anacortes a half hour before closing. Don't let the Cross Stitch name fool you; they also have a lot of nice knitting yarns. I was also able to visit Anacortes Beads before getting on the highway. I really like this area north of Seattle and want to consider it as a possible retirement spot, but I've yet to convince Jim that it doesn't rain there every day.

My next destination was Lacey, WA, home of the incredible Shipwreck Beads. They say they have the world's largest selection of beads, and I believe them. This is really a bead department store, and I was overwhelmed by its size. I spent four hours there, shopping for three members of my bead guild in addition to myself. Especially fun were the bins of discount bags of pearls. When I finally checked out, the cashier told me I had 5500 grams of pearls, which is over 12 pounds. Afraid to put them in my suitcase and make it overweight, I carried the bag on the plane with me. I knew I wouldn't end up keeping all of them, and sure enough, members of the bead guild were happy to buy lots of them from me.

Cambria Paradise

2009-02-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Cambria, 2/3/09 - 2/7/09

There seems to be a requirement that owners of a vacation rental house give a name to the house. Cambria Paradise is the name of a house we've stayed in twice, first in 2007 and now this week. Cambria is a beautiful little town of 6500 people on the Central Coast, almost exactly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. We've gone there about every two years since we moved to California. When the owner of Cambria Paradise emailed about special winter prices, we couldn't resist.

The best thing about the house is its location. It's in the expensive Seaclift development, on a side street that dead ends at the ocean. There's only one house between it and the ocean, and the views are spectacular. It's also within walking distance of Cambria's two fabulous walks. The East-West Ranch walk is on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and connects the housing areas on the east and west sides of the town. Moonstone Beach is another beautiful ocean walk. Each of these walks is about a mile one way. The trails have been improved since our first visit, with boardwalks covering most of the trails. It is also possible to walk downtown from the house.

The name Cambria Paradise could apply equally well to the town itself. Downtown Cambria is divided into two "villages", east and west, with a sort of no man's land between them that contains churches, schools, and a decrepit old cottage housing a video store where we've rented movies several times. The east village is a bit more upscale, with art galleries and upscale restaurants. The west village has pizza places, delis, and funky stores.

On Wednesday we visited our friends Nancy and Jerry in Morro Bay, about 15 miles south of Cambria. They have rented out their home in Mountain View and are renting a condo in Morro Bay for the year, to see whether they want to settle there. We liked their condo, which is spacious, has a great view, and is right downtown. For a town just about twice as big as Cambria, Morro Bay has a lot to offer. There are two bead stores, a nice waterfront with stores and restaurants, and a unique store called Lina G that features ribbons, trimmings, and yarn.

Thursday was my day to wander and shop in Cambria. After we had breakfast out, Jim drove home and I walked the length of the town, stopping in the yarn store, Ball & Skein & More; the needlepoint store, Flying Fuzzies (which now also has knitting yarn); and the bead store, Cambria Beads. Since we didn't get any cell phone service in Cambria, Jim and I had arranged for him to pick me up at Cambria Coffee Roasting at 1 p.m. I was there and ready to go by noon. I used the coffee shop's wireless to send Jim an email, hoping he would be online and would come and pick me up early. After I finished my coffee I started walking home, hoping that Jim would meet me en route. I got to the house just as he was about to leave to pick me up. But it was a nice walk, and good exercise.

Also on Thursday we drove to the nearest "big city", San Luis Obispo, a college town which is the home of Cal Poly. SLO has a very nice, walkable downtown with both a Starbucks and a Peet's. I visited Naturally Jennifer's, a bead store with a great selection of seed beads, while Jim went to Starbucks. After that we went to see Last Chance Harvey (I love Dustin Hoffman but this is not one of his better movies) and ate dinner at Novo, a Brazilian restaurant. SLO is known for its Thursday farmer's market, which was still going when we finished dinner.

Friday was a rainy day, perfect for staying home, enjoying the ocean view, reading and beading. (We had great luck with the winter weather. Tuesday and Wednesday were warm and sunny; Thursday was cloudy but rained only at night.) On Saturday we drove home on the coastal route, stopping to see the elephant seals near San Simeon, just north of Cambria.

One of the highlights of this trip to Cambria was that I finally found Pat Riley, the artist from whom I bought a handpainted sweatshirt and two tee shirts on our first visit to Cambria, in 1995. The sweatshirt especially is one of my favorite items of clothing, and I always get compliments when I wear it. At that time Pat was selling her work at a table on Burton Drive. I looked for her on every subsequent visit, without success. I came close in 2007 when a woman who works at the Seekers Gallery (which sells beautiful glass objects) recognized my sweatshirt, told me Pat's name, and told me that her studio is in Tin City, a former storage complex near downtown. I walked to Tin City and couldn't find Pat.

On this visit I lucked out. The same woman at Seeker's recognized my sweatshirt again, and this time referred me to Lily's Coffee House, for which the multi-talented Pat bakes cupcakes. I went to Lily's, found a poster there with Pat's phone number and an advertisement for an open studio! I called Pat and arranged to visit her studio on Saturday. There I tried on lots of things and bought three, the two pictured above and a purple fleece jacket which she will custom paint for me. I found out that Pat does several shows a year in Pacific Grove (another of my favorite places, and closer to home), and one show in Palo Alto, even closer to home. Now I'm on her mailing list and hopefully won't lose touch again, although she said she's retiring from the handpainted clothing business next year to work on her art.

Whenever Jim and I visit Cambria we have two conflicting thoughts: We love this town and we want to live here; and We can't live here, it's too isolated. Cambria has no hospital, no movie theater, no Starbucks. The largest grocery store is a small supermarket called the Cookie Crock (or as I call it, the Cookie Crumbles). The nearest large airports are probably Santa Barbara and San Jose, and each of those is a long drive. Although we love to drive around looking for houses for sale in Cambria, the isolation thought always wins and I don't think we'll seriously consider retiring in Cambria. But we'll certainly visit Cambria Paradise every couple of years.

Who Reads This, Anyway?

2008-12-24T11:30:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 12/24/08

Last week this blog passed the 1000 mark for "unique visitors", and that's just since June 9, when I installed the Bravenet counter. I started the blog in January. I continue to be amazed at how many people are actually reading this thing. The average seems to be about 3 or 4 per day, with small surges after I write a new post. (The surge comes mostly from my knitting friends, who find out about the post by checking their friends' activities on Ravelry.)

Bravenet shows me the most recent "referrers", which are the web sites or searches that led people to the blog. By far the most common referrer is variations on searches for bead stores or yarn stores in Maui. This was the subject of one of my first posts, in January. There must be a lot of knitters and beaders out there who are planning trips to Hawaii. I also get searches for specific beading teachers or projects that I have written about. And there are occasional unexpected searches, like the recent one for "fortman (sic) and mason afternoon tea". No, I didn't misspell it on the blog; the hit was on the other words.

More recently I installed Feedjit, which gives me a map showing the location (but not the identity) of people who come to the blog. This has been truly fascinating, and has led me to speculate about why people are reading what I write. The first marks on the map were from northern California and the Washington, DC area. This is understandable; it was my local knitting friends and my friends from Y2Knit, who linked from their blog to my posts about the Montisi retreat.

The first international hit was from Kuwait. I was amazed. Was it an American soldier, a knitter or beader, on her way to Iraq? When the Kuwait hit recently disappeared from the map I got suspicious; was the Pentagon involved? Some Italian hits followed, probably people searching for information about Montisi. I was surprised by the first hit from Africa, in Mali. Now I have visitors from every continent except Antarctica. Aren't there some knitting or beading researchers stuck in Antarctica for our winter/their summer who have little to amuse them except reading blogs?

In the U.S., the hits are clustered on the two coasts, with a nice sprinkling from the midwest. But strangely, there is a big gap coming from the mountain time zone. I used to work for a company based in Denver, and I've spent a lot of enjoyable time there. I've also loved visiting New Mexico. What is it about my blog that is keeping residents of the mountain west away?

To readers of this blog, wherever and whoever you are: I am very grateful for your support during my first year of blogging. I wish you happy holidays and the best for 2009.

Not a Normal City

2008-12-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Venice, 10/16/08 - 10/20/08

"Venice is not a normal city." That was the response of the man at the desk in our hotel, when we told him we were confused by the street addresses. He's right; Venice is unlike any other city I've been to. There are no cars or other land vehicles anywhere in the city. The public transit system consists entirely of boats. People walk everywhere. Every other store has colorful glass jewelry in the window. I was in heaven!

The instructions to get to our hotel from the train station were: take water bus #1 to the Ca D'Oro stop, then the hotel is a one-minute walk. One minute turned into at least 20 as we got lost and had to ask a few people for directions. We soon found out that's what life as a tourist in Venice is like. I didn't find the city map to be much help, and I got impatient when Jim would stop walking in the middle of the street to consult the map. I learned to go with the flow.

We thought we figured out the street address system after a while. Venice is divided into six districts, or sestieri. Addresses seem to be assigned by sestieri rather than by individual street. We stayed in Cannaregio, where a restaurant might have an address like Cannaregio 4624. If you know which side street the restaurant is on, you can use that as a clue, but otherwise you walk along the main street of Cannaregio until you find the 4600's, then start looking on side streets.

On our first full day in the city, our plan was to take the water bus, or Vaporetto, all the way down the Grand Canal to Lido, a beach resort where I remember staying with my parents in 1965. The ticket booth at the Ca D'Oro stop was closed, so we went to a nearby tobacco shop and bought one-day transit passes. While we were waiting for the boat at Ca D'Oro, another tourist told us that there was a transit strike and many of the boats were not running. We had just wasted 34 Euros on our one-day passes! We quickly changed plans and instead walked to the huge San Marco square, the center of the city.

In San Marco we were approached by a man who asked us if we wanted to visit the island of Murano and tour a glass factory. We did; it was on my list of things to do and I thought we might get some good glass bargains there. Because of the transit strike, the factory was offering a free taxi ride. The man helped us into a water taxi and we had a surprisingly long and rough ride to Murano. At the glass factory, we were greeted by a woman I came to think of as our minder. Each of the few families visiting the factory had their own minder, who explained the glass making process and sat with them during the demo. After the demo, in which a glass artist made a vase and a horse, the minder took us to the showroom, where we saw lots of beautiful and very expensive glass pieces. I thought we would never get out of there without buying something, especially after they paid for our taxi ride, but after a bit of looking we just said we were done and the minder walked us out.

We walked around Murano a bit, had lunch, and found some less expensive glass stores, but it seemed that the stores in Venice proper were just as good and not as expensive. We managed to get a Vaporetto back to San Marco, using our day passes. From there, Jim went to a museum while I took off in search of some bead stores I had on my list. Atmosfera Veneziana is a beautiful store where I had no trouble spending over 60 Euros on some glass beads to add to my small Italian bead collection. I was proud of myself for finding the addresses on my own, then finding my way back to the hotel. On the way I stopped at several of the ubiquitous glass stores, buying some pendants which I plan to use with kumihimo braids or other beading projects. Many of the glass stores had a few baskets of beads. There was also a bead store not far from the hotel, on our way to almost every place we walked; I visited several times before settling on a few things to buy.

After all the Medieval and Renaissance art in Florence, we were happy to see some 20th-century art at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Guggenheim was a wealthy American who lived in Venice, and the museum is in what used to be her home.

Our hotel served a perfectly adequate breakfast, as did the hotel in Florence, with the same selections every day. We were always looking for places to eat breakfast out, but never found a suitable place in either city. There were bakeries with beautiful pastries in the window, but they didn't serve coffee or have tables. There were bars that had coffee and were open in the mornings, but their pastry selection did not look as interesting. This seemed to us to be something lacking in Italian life. They need some Cafe Borrone equivalents.

When it was time for us to leave Venice and fly to Rome, we asked at the hotel about options for getting to the airport. We could walk to Ca D'Oro and take a Vaporetto to the bus station, where we could get an airport bus. We could walk a longer distance and get a boat that would take us directly to the airport. Or for 100 Euros we could take a water taxi that would pick us up at our hotel, which had a back door that opened to one of the canals. Although we were tired of schlepping our suitcases, we ruled out the water taxi option because of the expense. We made a dry run of the walk to the airport boat and decided it would be too far with suitcases, although we had lunch at a lovely restaurant near the boat stop. That left us with the Vaporetto/bus option. I was nervous as I usually am on travel days: Would the timing work out right? Would we be ok walking in the dark at 6 a.m.? Would we have trouble getting on the Vaporetto with our suitcases? But everything worked out fine. The Vaporetto showed up right on schedule; no transit strike that day. We had a nice, last view of Venice in the dark from the Grand Canal. As we got to the bus station and saw land vehicles for the first time in 4 days, it was a relief to be on dry land again, but I was also sad to be leaving the magic of this not-normal city.

Two weeks is about my limit for foreign travel. I start to feel the stress of being in an unfamiliar culture and trying to deal with an unfamiliar language. On our last couple of days in Venice, both of us came down with bad colds. By the time we got to Rome my cold was at its worst, and I was a couple of days beyond the two-week limit. I was really ready to go home. We spent an afternoon touring Rome, most of it on a hop-on hop-off bus, and also searching for a pharmacy where I could buy tissues. My last night in Italy was a sleepless one, not helped by the fact that I hated our hotel (on the outskirts of Rome, near the airport) and that I had taken an Italian cold medication that seemed to make me more congested. It was followed by a miserable 12-hour flight to Dulles, during which I couldn't find a comfortable sitting position, and then a somewhat better 6-hour flight to San Francisco, which I mostly slept through.

I loved the trip to Italy: the small town life of Montisi, the dazzle of Florence, and the magic of Venice. But I was also glad to get home and start our new life, with both of us now retired. More on that in a future post.

Firenze

2008-11-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Firenze, 10/11/08 - 10/15/08

Firenze is the city we call Florence, but I think the Italian name is much prettier. I met Jim there after the Montisi knitting retreat. Gianmarco drove a group of us to the train station in Sinalunga. I was the only person traveling north; everyone else was going back to Rome and then home from there. I said good-bye to my fellow knitters at the station, and for the first time I was on my own in Italy.

After a week in the tiny town of Montisi, I was dazzled by Firenze: the jewels sparkling in store windows, wonderful-looking pastries on display in bakeries, beautiful Medieval and Renaissance architecture, and lots of people walking everywhere. The center of Firenze is closed to traffic except for taxis, which have to go slowly to make sure they don't run over the pedestrians. I was glad to be back in a city.

The Hotel Alessandra is a very nice small hotel in a central location, within easy walking distance of the Uffizi Gallery and the Ponte Vecchio (pictured at night, at the top of this post). It is on what Italians call the second floor, but we call the third floor, of a palace built in 1507. I was surprised at how spacious our room was. The view of the Arno River from our hotel window is above.

Neither of us is much of a museum-goer (despite my having worked with museum data for several years at RLG), but we had to visit the Uffizi and the Accademia (home of Michelangelo's David). We found that the self-guided museum tours in Rick Steves' guidebook were just right for us; they concentrated on one piece of art in each gallery and there was humor in the descriptions. We read them out loud to each other as we toured the museums.

One day we took a bus tour to Siena, another medieval Tuscan city, where we had a walking tour that ended at Il Campo, the huge town square. On the way back we stopped in San Gimignano, "the epitome of a Tuscan hill town" according to Rick Steves, beautiful but very touristy (seen from a distance in the picture above). We had less than an hour there, and a lot of it was spent waiting in line for the rest room (for which we had to pay), and for prize-winning gelato (for which we also had to pay).

Our hotel arranged for us to take a cooking class, which was a lot of fun. Along with other students from all over the world, we made two types of pasta and two sauces, plus chocolate salami, chocolate mixed with pieces of biscotti and rolled to look like a sausage. We sat down to eat our pasta with a couple from Australia and a couple from India who live in London; among us we had the English-speaking world pretty well covered.

Gelato is everywhere in Firenze. I had with me a list from the San Jose Mercury News that preported to be the top 10 best ice cream places in the world; one was in Firenze and one in San Gimignano. I was suspicious of the list because of the three U.S. entries, places in Maui and in Fairbanks that I had never heard of, plus Ben & Jerry's in Vermont. I like Ben & Jerry's but would hardly rate it as one of the 10 best in the world. (I do, however, rate Toscanini in Cambridge, MA that way.) The list's Italian recommendations were good enough, but Vivoli's, a recommendation from Rick Steves, was the best. I was surprised by how good the rice gelato was, like a frozen version of rice pudding.

Of course I needed some time for shopping in Firenze. As usual, I had a list of yarn and bead stores from the web. Filati Campolmi is a yarn outlet store that had some bargains. At Beatrice Galli Yarn Shop, the owner followed me through the length of the store, commenting on the yarns and making me very uncomfortable. I bought a little bit in each place, but I also had in mind that we were trying to travel light and that the stock market was crashing, so for once I didn't go overboard. I thought I had found Ditta Chiti but then decided I must be wrong, since the window was full of underwear. Then I remembered that it's common in Europe for yarn to be sold in lingerie stores.

Beaded Lilly was not as good a store as its website made it look; a very small bead store that I had to visit 3 times before finding it open. I also discovered another small bead store purely by accident while walking through the city. I started a collection of glass beads, which I continued buying in Venice, and which I plan to string some day as a remembrance of our trip to Italy.

Canottiera

2008-10-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Montisi, Tuscany, Italy, 10/4/08 – 10/11/08

The knitting project for the retreat was something of a mystery before I got to Montisi. It's called Canottiera, and it's a modular, wearable art vest. Jill started releasing patterns for the various pieces in June. They are complex designs with intriguing names like Bit of Italy and Farfalle Knot (named after the villa cat Farfalle). We had a basic schematic, but it was difficult to see how the pieces would fit together.

This project pretty much consumed my knitting life for several months, and frankly, I resented it. Most of the pieces had lots of cables and twisted stitches, not my style, and a type of knitting that I don't enjoy. The pieces were difficult, and there were lots of corrections to the patterns, and just when I thought I had caught up, another piece would be released. I also didn't really like the yarn colors I was using; they were not as bright as I usually use. I kept at it, but also kept finding other projects that I really wanted to start (or continue) working on.

When we got to Montisi and started our workshops (which were scheduled for 2 - 4 hours per day, around other activities), the plan for the Canottiera became more clear and I began to enjoy it more. We steamed the pieces and they started to look much nicer. Jill has a magic touch with steaming; she puts the piece on the kitchen counter, saturates it with steam, and uses her hands to get the piece to look perfect. We started to put the pieces together.

We also did some art felting, which I enjoyed very much, to create a yoke for our vest. We used a needle felting tool to attach pencil roving to "magic paper", then wet the piece, put it in the dryer to felt, then poured boiling water on it to get the magic paper to dissolve. I went wild with colors in my needle felting, so that I'm not really sure that the yoke goes well with the rest of the vest.

I didn't get my vest finished in Montisi; I don't think anyone in the group did. I still have several pieces to knit, and a lot of putting together to do. Without impetus from Jill, Susan, and the rest of the group, I fear this could become a UFO, which would be a shame after all the work I've done on it.

Several months before the retreat, Susan and Jill started a blog that participants could contribute to. I really appreciate this technique; it's a good way to get to know fellow travelers before actually meeting them, and to ask questions about the project. I arranged to take the same flight from Dulles to Rome as 5 other women going to the retreat, and before we met at Dulles we felt as if we almost knew each other. We recognized each other by our "Knitters for Obama" pins. It seemed as if everyone on our retreat was an Obama supporter, or if some were not, they kept it to themselves.

After the 6 of us went through taking 3 different trains together, schlepping all of our luggage, laughing at the tiny elevators we had to take two by two to change platforms in Chiusi, and then the extremely long ramp that was the alternative to stairs in Sinalunga, we were a cohesive group by the time we got to Montisi. We found two other knitters along the way, one in Chiusi and the other in Sinalunga. This group of knitters was one of the nicest I've been with on a retreat, and I hope to remain in touch with them.

Life in Montisi

2008-10-27T09:57:00.001-07:00

Dateline: Montisi, Tuscany, Italy, 10/4/08 – 10/11/08

During our week in Montisi, we knitters became part of the community of this small town. A lot of people in town knew about the "knitting ladies" and would greet us as we walked around town. One day we staged a KIP (knitting in public) photo op on the piazza, or town square, in front of a mural that featured a woman knitting. And throughout our visit, we tried to adjust our schedule to the town's rhythms.

There are a few small stores in town: two tiny grocery stores, one of which also sells postcards and sewing notions; a gift shop; a bakery. The stores are typically open in the morning, closed for the afternoon, then open again for the late afternoon/early evening, but they didn't always keep to their posted hours. One morning a few of us walked to the grocery/postcard store and found the owner struggling to find her key. As one of us held her coffee for her, she looked but could not find it, and we finally walked back to the villa. I'm sure she didn't like having to turn away so many customers.

We got to know some of the dogs and cats of Montisi. Fritzi (the black and white cat) and her daughter Farfalle ("Butterfly", the white cat) live outside the villa and show up at least twice a day for food. I saw this boxer only once, but thought he made a nice picture in the window of his owners' home. A friendly black dog, Fragolette ("Little Strawberry"), wandered around town, greeting everyone and sometimes following people as they walked.

Montisi is divided into several contradas, or neighborhoods. On our first full day in town, our contrada had a fundraising lunch to support their jousting team (!) and our group attended. The main street was blocked to traffic (not that there was ordinarily a lot of traffic), and two long tables were set up in the street. Contrada residents cooked and served a lunch of several courses, including an excellent lasagna, tripe (which was actually good, but somehow I couldn't eat much of it), and unexpectedly, some of the best French fries I've ever had. Wine was included, of course, and the traditional dessert was vin santo, a sweet wine into which biscotti are dipped. It was great meeting and trying to communicate with some of the local people, and also some foreign visitors.

I'm used to having constant internet access, and maybe it was good for me to break that habit for a while, but I never gave up the quest for access while in Italy. I had no less than two computers with me, a laptop and my iPhone. Montisi has a bar/cafe, Il Rondo, which has a computer that visitors are welcome to use, but I was never able to get a wireless signal inside the bar. I discovered, however, that I could get a signal right outside the bar in the piazza. That became my personal wireless hotspot, and I went there at least twice a day to get news of the outside world: download email and New York Times news, call home, and get stock market quotes (which I might have been happier without; I was asked not to use the word "crash" to describe the market because I was upsetting other knitters, but I still believe this was the right word. Not a good time for us to be retiring and living off our investments.) I had an internet phone package that allowed me to call home very cheaply, but required wireless access. Later I discovered that the wireless signal was also available near the snack bar, so I would go there in the morning, order coffee (which was a good, strong espresso), then sit and use my iPhone.

I never found out whose wireless network I was using, since both the cafe and the snack bar denied it belonged to them (which may have been due to communication problems on my part). But it was reliable and free, which is more than I can say for the access in our hotels in Florence, Venice and Rome. All of these hotels charged what I considered outrageous rates for internet access, such as 8 Euros per hour. I paid for time but tried to keep my online time to a minimum.

Knitting Retreat in Montisi

2008-10-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Montisi, Tuscany, Italy, 10/4/08 – 10/11/08

Y2Knit is a bicoastal company run by two sisters, Jill and Susan Wolcott. Jill lives in San Francisco and is a designer; Susan lives in Maryland and runs a yarn store. Together they sell patterns and yarn, teach classes, and also organize retreats for knitters. This year they had a series of retreats in Montisi, a rural town of about 400 people in Tuscany, dating from medieval times. I attended the second week, along with 9 other knitters. We stayed in Villa Maddalena, a big old house on the main street of the town.

In addition to the knitting workshops, which I’ll cover in a future post, Susan and Jill filled the week with interesting activities without venturing far from Montisi. The theme of the week seemed to be living your passion. All of us are passionate knitters, and thanks to Jill and Susan’s local contacts in Montisi, we were able to meet and interact with several people who are just as passionate about their work.

Elizabeth Cochrane is a British artist who has lived in Montisi for several years and has become a valuable member of the community. She paints the gorgeous Tuscan landscapes, and specializes in painting clouds. Liz also devotes time to helping tourists enjoy Montisi. She served as translator for several of our activities, and also welcomed us into her home and studio. In the picture, Liz has her back to the camera as she translates for Marco during our tour of La Grancia, a former estate which is now used for winemaking and renting apartments to visitors.

For a small town, Montisi has an abundance of excellent food. Tina Hilton, an editor and yarn rep, did most of the cooking for us, and all of the food was wonderful. Three meals especially stood out. One dinner was cooked for us at the villa by Alessandro, a local chef. It included picci, a Tuscan pasta which is like a thicker version of spaghetti. I bought a package to bring home, it cooks for 22 minutes, which is unusually long. Montisi also has two wonderful restaurants that serve locally produced food. Alberto owns La Romita, a hotel and small restaurant that is part of the “slow food” movement. He cooked and unobtrusively served us a wonderful dinner of several courses; a highlight was the chestnut pasta.

Alberto also owns a frantoio, or olive press, which is used to make olive oil from the local crop. His passion really became apparent when he talked to us about olive oil, with Liz as his translator. After explaining how the oil is made, Alberto gave us a tasting of two oils, one ordinary extra virgin from the supermarket, and the other last year’s locally produced oil. He showed us that the supermarket oil had a somewhat rancid smell and taste, while the local oil smelled like freshly cut grass, and was a natural green color. The day we left Montisi was the first day of this year’s olive harvest, and unfortunately none of last year’s oil was left to be sold, so we were not able to buy any. Montisi produces only enough oil to be used locally and does not export it. When I get home to Sigona, my favorite produce store, which sells a variety of Italian olive oils, I’ll look for some Tuscan oil that smells like fresh grass.

On the other end of town from La Romita is Da Roberto, a beautiful restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining. Roberto served us a stupendous lunch, starting with panzanella (Tuscan bread salad) and ending with tiramisu. Roberto does not believe in using vinegar in his salads; he says it’s a “trick” that masks the natural taste of the food. He also doesn’t use alcohol, another “trick”, in his tiramisu. I don’t usually like tiramisu, but this was wonderful, full of chocolate, espresso, and cream.

The next day Roberto, who speaks fluent English, put on a wine tasting for us in his garden. We tasted a white, a rose, and two reds, all produced by small local vineyards. Roberto spoke to us for two hours about the wines, food, and other fascinating topics.

We took several walks in and around Montisi. The longest walk was a 6-kilometer round trip, much of it uphill, to the nearby town of Castelmuzio. Both Montisi and Castelmuzio are hill towns, so of course we had to walk downhill from Montisi and then uphill to Castelmuzio, then vice versa on the way back. I lagged behind with women 10 years older than I am, but at least I was able to complete the walk. While in Castelmuzio we visited the harpsichord studio of Bruce Kennedy, who showed us a beautiful, newly built harpsichord and played a little Bach. We then walked through some of the steep, narrow streets of the town, which really feels like a castle, and visited the local supermarket (only a little larger than our typical convenience store) before starting the walk back to Montisi.

We also enjoyed meeting a genuine celebrity, although I have to admit I had never heard of her before, not being a Harry Potter fan. Miriam Margolyes is a British actress who played Professor Sprout in Harry Potter, among other roles, and some of our group recognized her around town. She came to visit us at the villa and talked to us about her home in Montisi and the new movie she’s about to shoot with Tom Conti and Daryl Hannah. Miriam is on the left in this picture.

Shop Hop, Day Four

2008-09-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 9/22/08

Yesterday I completed the shop hop by joining Jocelyn and her group (her daughter Kelsey, Cris, Sylvia, and Carol) to visit my three remaining stores. The rest of the group was going on to three more stores, but Jim and I were going to a barbecue with his SLAC colleagues to celebrate the end of the Babar project in the afternoon, so I went with the group only to the three northernmost stores.

I had a lot of fun doing the shop hop, but I have to admit that I'm glad it's over. I'm really happy to be back to my quiet routine. I've done very little knitting and no beading in several days, and I want to get back to them. After all, if I don't use at least some of the the yarn and beads I've been buying, how can I justify buying more?

9:45 -- leave home

10:00 -- Edgewood park and ride at 280 and Edgewood

Jocelyn picked me up and we headed to Burlingame.

10:30 -- Burlingame

I'd like to take a class at Yarn Paper Scissors sometime, because they have nice, brightly furnished classrooms with a lot of light. I fell in love with a scarf from Ocean Breezes, a book that I already have. Jocelyn gave me a coupon that she had forgotten to use on her own purchases; in exchange, I bought her coffee at Peet's.

Bought: 3 skeins of Laines du Nord Mulberry Silk.

11:15 -- San Mateo

All of us liked Nine Rubies' one-skein project, a beaded purse in both knit and crochet. The pattern came with a 10% discount at The Beading Frenzy.

Bought: 3 skeins of Filatura di Crosa Dolce Amore.

12:00 -- Belmont

At Creative Hands, I received my last stamp and turned in my passport. I hope I win a prize, but since I have lousy prize-winning luck, I doubt that I will. We ate lunch at a good Mexican restaurant a block away.

Bought: One skein of Kraemer Sterling silk and silver (the sparkles are actual silver)

1:15 -- back to Edgewood

Jocelyn dropped me off. I was surprised to see a Tesla parked next to my car. Was it George Clooney's car?

1:30 -- back home. 19 down, 0 to go.

Shop Hop, Day Three

2008-09-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 9/20/08

This shop hopping is exhausting! After yesterday I wasn't sure I ever wanted to see another yarn store. I'm glad I didn't fall asleep during the concert (which was very good). Still, I carried on today. I've set my goal and I plan to reach it. My rate of buying is going down, though, which is a good thing.

9:20 -- leave home

9:40 -- Menlo Park

Cafe Borrone for our usual Saturday breakfast. We take separate cars so that I can start hopping from there.

11:30 -- Los Gatos

A short visit to Natural Expressions, a bead/quilting store that I had never been in before. Then to Yarndogs, which has its own quiz/scavenger hunt for a prize drawing. I spent some time looking for edible yarns and for sock yarns that contain no wool.

12:45 -- Campbell

At Green Planet, I saw a swirl sweater for which they're having a crochet-along, and decided I wanted to participate, even though I have to miss the first 2 sessions. They assured me that I could catch up.

Bought: 2 skeins Mirasol Hacho, 2 Big Eye Beading Needles (I had been looking for these all along and Green Planet was the first shop that had them).

1:25 -- San Jose

This was only my second time in the Knitting Room. The people were nice and helpful. I really liked CommuKnity's one-skein project, a beaded scarf in Frog Tree Alpaca.

Bought: 1 skein Lamb's Pride variegated worsted, 2 small clear plastic project bags (I have so many wip's I don't know where to put them all), 1 skein Frog Tree Alpaca, 3 tubes of size 6 beads, 1 pattern.

3:00 -- Redwood City

I stopped Art on the Square, where a friend from the bead guild was selling her jewelry. I've never seen so much activity in Redwood City! Salsa tasting, dancing in the square, lots of people.

4:10 -- back home, time for a nap! 16 down, 3 to go.

Shop Hop, Day Two

2008-09-19T16:00:00.001-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 9/19/08

Today was a more relaxing day; fewer stores, shorter distances. It's a short shopping day for me, because tonight Jim and I are going to San Francisco for dinner and a San Francisco Symphony concert. They're playing music by Leonard Bernstein to commemorate what would have been his 90th birthday.

10:00 -- leave home

10:20 -- Los Altos

It's good to have two stores within walking distance of each other, Full Thread Ahead and Uncommon Threads. I already knew I wanted to do Full Thread's shawl project because I got a preview of it on Ravelry. In fact, I went for both of their projects, the shawl and the market bag.

Bought: One skein Marinella sea cell/silk for shawl; one skein Louet Euroflax for bag. Two books (Nashua Vacation and Rowan Colourscapes Chunky Collection). Birthday present for Jim; will not be revealed here but it's NOT YARN.

12:00 -- Mountain View

Stop for lunch at Erik's Deli and to buy some cat food.

1:00 -- Sunnyvale

At Purlescence, saw one of Alison's shawls on display and was hoping it was the one-skein project, but it's from her second book, in progress, so the pattern is not yet available. I did buy a skein of the yarn that was used for it.

Bought: One skein Casbah, Dandelion colorway; set of plastic kumihimo disks (I've been using the styrofoam ones but these look much better).

1:45 -- Santa Clara

The Yarn Place's new location is very nice. After visiting there I was already tired, but Bobbin's Nest was only .7 miles away (according to my gps) so how could I not go there?

Bought: One cone Kraemer Yarns Little Lehigh Pebbles in bright pink at 50% off; 2 patterns; one ball of Cable Due cotton (for bead crochet or kumihimo).

3:00 -- back home. 12 down, 7 to go.

Peninsula to Pier LYS Shop Hop, Day One

2008-09-18T21:28:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 9/18/08

The second annual Peninsula to Pier LYS (local yarn store) Shop Hop started today and runs until Sunday. 19 shops are participating. Each shop has a one-skein project (some have both knit and crochet projects), pattern free with purchase of yarn. As you visit each shop you get your passport stamped. There are prize drawings at the end for people who have at least 12 passport stamps.

I missed last year's shop hop and I'm determined to go to all 19 stores this year. Will I end up with 38 skeins of yarn and 38 new projects? I'd better not! So why am I doing this? Certainly I don't need any more yarn or projects. I've been to most of these stores many times. The chances of my winning a prize are slim. And I have some other events planned for this weekend in addition to the shop hop. I guess I'm doing it because it's an accomplishment of sorts, and a break from my normal routine. I'm also determined to blog about each day's adventures. And I'm determined NOT to buy something in every shop.

This is definitely a multi-day endeavor. The geographic spread is from Burlingame, 15 miles north of us, to Carmel, 95 miles south. Today was my long day for shop hopping, because I didn't have anything else scheduled, so I decided to start with the shops farthest away. I thought about staying overnight somewhere, but decided against it because I didn't feel like being away from home again so soon after the Portland trip. Since the shops were all open until 8 tonight, I decided to stay out as late as I could and visit as many shops as I could.

This would be a perfect application for Twitter; I could have Twittered my location and purchases all day. Since I didn't, I'll go through the day's events here.

9:15 -- leave home

10:06 -- Morgan Hill

Perfect timing; arrive at Continental Stitch right after opening. This is the only one of the 19 I've never been to. Morgan Hill is always on the way to somewhere but never a destination. Last year's grand prize winner arrived there ahead of me. The store's crochet project had not yet arrived.

Bought: One skein of Schaeffer Anne, rainbow colors, 30% off.

In front of the store, I run into a friend who didn't know about the Shop Hop; was just passing by in her car and happened to see me. She recommends that I stop at Madonna Needlework, which is not on the hop. Since she's the second person to recommend this store, I decide to go there. There is some knitting yarn, but mostly needlepoint threads, beautifully arranged by color.

Bought: Small hanks of 4 different needlepoint threads to try with the bead crochet project that's giving me so much trouble.

12:25 -- Pacific Grove

Too bad I have so little time in one of my favorite towns in California. Grand Prize Winner is at Monarch Knits, having already been to Carmel and back. I become worried that I'm behind schedule and won't get to all the Santa Cruz shops today.

Bought: 2 skeins of Knitcol self-striping sock yarn (I probably won't do their fingerless glove project, but I liked the yarn); 1 skein of Tango tape yarn (because the Monarch people showed me how to crochet one of those nice ruffled scarves; I never did get the hang of knitting with this type of yarn).

Lunch at Red House Cafe, which has a wonderful warm tomato and mozzarella sandwich. French roast coffee from the drip bar at Juice and Java, for the road. Drove out of town on Oceanview Blvd.

2:40 -- Carmel

Quick stop at Knitting by the Sea, just to get my passport stamped. Fruitless search for a bead store. Carmel has no street addresses, so all I knew was the intersection. I wandered around for a while, then asked in another store and found out bead store was out of business. Referred to a different store, which turned out to have jewelry but no beads.

Bought: One pound of Carmel Foglifter French roast coffee beans, at Carmel Valley Coffee Roasting Co.

4:45 -- Capitola

Another quick stop for passport stamp at The Yarn Place. Then off into the Santa Cruz rush hour. Luckily my car radio can now get KPIG, a station I like which is available only in the Monterey/Santa Cruz area.

5:30 -- Santa Cruz

Had a little trouble finding the Golden Fleece's new location. New store looks smaller to me than old one.

Bought: One skein of Kauni (I can't resist the stuff!) in yellow/orange/red.

Coffee/dessert at Java Junction, a Reese's peanut butter cup mocha. Then on to the Swift Stitch.

Bought: 3 skeins of Plymouth Fantasy Naturale from the "2 buck bucket"; one skein Chasing Rainbows mohair/wool (although I won't do the beret project); one pattern.

6:50 -- Felton

Luminous Threads is my last stop for the day. (I considered also going to Purlescence, which was open until 9, but will save it for another day.) Their project is a knitted bracelet with cables, which I might not do, but I bought the yarn and got the pattern anyway. I reminisced with Amber, the owner, about that terrible stormy day in January when she helped all of us who were trying to get to the Quaker Center for our retreat. Hoping for better weather next January.

Bought: One skein Cascade Greenland; 4 glass buttons.

8:20 -- back home. 7 down, 12 to go.

Back to Portland

2008-09-14T18:20:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Portland, OR, 9/14/08

After many years without visiting Portland, I am here for the second time this year. This time I'm attending the Knit and Crochet Show, an event held jointly by the national knitting and crochet guilds. I flew this time, not being up for another 1500-mile round-trip drive. The weather is a lot better than when I was here in March. No snow this time; in fact, it's warmer here than it is at home.

I'm practicing traveling light for my trip to Italy next month, when I'll be taking several train trips. I did pretty well on clothing, but of course I brought more yarn and more projects than I could possibly work on in 4 days. Still, I had no problem taking the light rail from the airport to a stop just a half block from the hotel. I continue to be impressed with Portland's public transportation.

Knit and Crochet is a much smaller conference than Stitches. This has good and bad points. The market is a lot less crowded, but there are a lot fewer vendors. There are fewer classes to choose from, but still a good variety, and a lot more crochet classes than at Stitches. This time I took exclusively crochet classes. I don't crochet as much as I knit, but I really enjoy crochet, and I'd like to learn more about it. (The market included a booth for the Crochet Liberation Front, a group that defends crochet against the too-common bias against it among knitters.)

Both of my Friday classes were with Darla Fanton. I've taken classes with Darla before; she's an excellent teacher, and she teaches unusual techniques like Tunisian crochet. These two classes were in bead crochet. I had a really hard time with the first class, which was crocheting a bracelet with very fine thread and a tiny hook. After several bad starts, I gave up and decided I should try it with heavier thread first. I did a lot better in the afternoon class, where we crocheted a necklace with wire (pictured at the top).

Yesterday I took a shawl crochet class with Melissa Leapman, a New Yorker who is the author of several knit and crochet books. We made 3 miniature shawls in class, and I really enjoyed the two triangular samples. The one on top has a picot edge and the other a ruffled edge. Since most of my crochet work so far has been limited to scarves, I was happy to learn how to do increases.

This morning's class was in broomstick lace with Jennifer Hansen, the owner of Stitch Diva Studios, who also specializes in unusual techniques. I couldn't imagine what kind of technique would use a huge knitting needle (size US 19) along with a small crochet hook, but I soon found out. You make big loops and put them on the knitting needle, then crochet into groupings of the loops. The class project, which I haven't yet finished, was a small Victorian drawstring pouch. Jennifer managed to include all sorts of techniques in the project: increases, decreases, short rows, and working in the round. I think this technique would make a beautiful scarf.

Of course I was tired for my Sunday afternoon class, but I still enjoyed Going Around in Circles with Marty Miller. We crocheted several sample circles, learning how to increase (if starting from the inside) or decrease (from the outside), add a ruffle, etc. The sample at the upper left is the beginning of a short row circle.

I was pretty restrained at the market, buying only a little bit of yarn, a book and a few patterns. I think I've finally caught on to the fact that I have an excessive stash, and spending a lot of time beading has decreased my desire to buy yarn. I'm also saving up some yarn buying "credits" for next week's Peninsula LYS Shop Hop.

I didn't have much time to be a tourist in Portland, but I did go to the Saturday Market yesterday. This Portland institution goes back almost 35 years. My first trip here was in 1975, when Jim and I came here to visit his brother Tom and sister-in-law Suzy, who lived here then. On Saturday morning they chopped a bunch of ingredients and came to the Saturday Market, where they operated a taco stand. (This was in addition to their day jobs.) Now the food stands seem a lot more commercialized, and the market is a lot bigger than I remembered.

Who is this Woman?

2008-09-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 9/9/08

I don't mean to turn this into a political blog, but I need to talk about someone who's been on my mind a lot for the last week and a half: the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Who is this woman to whom I've reacted with such strong and contradictory emotions? I dislike her even more than I do the current president and vice president. But I'm also fascinated by her and reluctantly admire her. I read everything I can find about her. I mentally recite the odd names of her 5 children. She is the Princess Diana of American politics, and I was fascinated by Diana too.

How can her story have caused me to think like a sexist? I question whether a mother of 5, including an infant with Down's syndrome, should want a job like the vice presidency. I know better than to ask questions like that. I imagine the conversations in which she persuaded her 17-year-old daughter to keep her baby, and the daughter's boyfriend to agree to be married and to travel to St. Paul. She's a "family values" person, but is she exploiting her family for her own political ambition?

How can an acceptance speech charm me and anger me at the same time? Charmed because of her obvious intelligence (even though someone else wrote the speech) and performing ability. Angered by her sarcasm about community organizing, and by the venom in her voice when she said "San Francisco". Contemptuous of the way she pronounces "Eye-raq".

When her selection was announced, I was overjoyed. He chose an unknown governor from a faraway state? He thinks he can attract Hillary's supporters just by choosing a woman? This will cost him the election! And I can't wait to watch her debate Joe Biden. But now the selection looks like a brilliant move. It looks as if they can win, and I'm terrified. In 4 years she could be president of the United States. She could complete this country's transition to theocracy.

Who is this woman? Let's hope that we don't have to find out more than we already know. Let's hope that after November 4 she goes back to just being the governor of a faraway state, even though she'll no longer be so unknown.

Wordle

2008-08-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 8/19/08

From the KnitPicks staff blog I discovered Wordle. You can feed this site a URL or some text, and it creates a colorful "word cloud" that gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the text. You can see the Wordle created from my blog on the sidebar, and click on it for a larger view.

It appears to me that Wordle looked only at the most recent posts on my blog. London and yarn are the dominant words. Surely I used the word "Portland" just as often as "London" during my trip there in March? And surely I mention beads as often as I mention yarn? And why is Jeffrey's British friend Richard more prominent than Jeffrey himself?

Still, I'm happy with my Wordle. Its color scheme looks good with the blog, so I didn't take the opportunity to change the colors. I like the fact that words like "women", "knitting", "shopping" and "restaurants" appear. "Trip" and "stores" have special prominence, which seems very appropriate to this blog.

Field Trips

2008-07-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Stockton, 7/11/08; Petaluma and San Rafael, 7/19/08

Recently I went on two shopping expeditions: one with beading friends to Stockton, and the other with knitting friends to Petaluma and San Rafael. There was a certain symmetry to the two trips. Each included six women (I was the only overlap). In each case, one of the women drove an SUV that fit all six comfortably. Since other people were driving, I was able to relax and knit in the car. Each trip involved about an hour and a half's drive. And by accident, the beading trip included one yarn store and the knitting trip included one bead store.

On the Stockton trip, our main objective was Bead Dreams, which has probably the best selection of seed beads I've ever seen. Other people came with specific shopping lists, but I just bought what looked good to me, hoping that I didn't already have the same color at home. After lunch at a nice crepe restaurant, we spent some time at Knit Witz, whose sign we happened to see on the way into town. There we heard that there was another bead store in town, so of course we made an unscheduled stop at Beads Plus.

The excuse for the knitting trip was to go to the Muench Yarns factory sale in Petaluma. The sale had a lot more yarns than just Muench, since Knitterly, a nearby yarn store, contributed lots of yarn to the sale. Most of the yarn was discounted 50%. I'm embarrassed to say how much I spent on yarn (which I obviously don't need more of); let's just say that I was the big spender in our group. We had lunch at a surprisingly good sports bar in a nearby mall. (I generally don't like sports bars, or almost anything with the word "sports" in its name.)

After lunch we headed south to San Rafael, where we stopped at two more yarn stores, Dharma Trading Co. and Marin Fiber Arts. At Dharma I resisted the temptation to buy more yarn, but I did buy two beaded scrunchies which I wear as bracelets. At Marin I couldn't resist a skein of lace weight Whisper in bright greens. While walking on the main street of San Rafael we happened upon Baubles and Beads, so of course we had to go in there too. I had been to their Berkeley store before, but not yet to San Rafael. You can read Vivian's account of the knitting field trip, with pictures, here.

Although I've talked before about my enjoyment of traveling and shopping by myself, I also really enjoyed these chances to spend a day with other beaders and knitters. I'll look forward to the next field trips!

Shopping in London

2008-07-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

Dateline: London, 6/28/08 - 7/6/08

I can imagine my knitting and beading friends thinking: All this travel stuff is ok, but what we really want to know is: What did you BUY? The truth is that I didn't have a lot of shopping time, because we were busy being tourists and seeing family and friends. And when I did have time for shopping, I was so tired that I didn't take full advantage. This is just as well, because I didn't go as overboard as I might have.

During our walk on the south bank of the Thames, I spotted a shop called Funki Fresh that sells beautiful machine-knit garments. After trying on some shrugs and thinking "I should knit something like this", I decided on a purple ruffled scarf that drapes beautifully.

My prize for the most unusual yarn store goes to Weardowny. When I arrived, there was a couch standing on end, between the gate and the main door. I managed to get in anyway and was greeted by friendly women and a friendly dog. There were knitted garments for sale and a small selection of yarn, mostly Rowan. They have knitting classes, and there's also a guest house upstairs. For class projects they have several patterns for sampler scarves. I couldn't resist buying a cute gift package of 2 skeins of yarn and small straight needles in a miniature hat box, plus the pattern for the lace sampler scarf, for 28 pounds. There was no way this was worth $56, but I was caught up in the charm of the place.

I found the yarn departments at two department stores, Liberty and John Lewis, not so easy until I figured out that it was listed under "haberdashery". John Lewis has a substantial yarn inventory, but the prices seemed a lot higher than for the same yarns in the U.S. Liberty's prices were even higher. Both stores had a 50% off sale on selected yarns. At John Lewis I bought some Rowan Kidsilk Night on sale for 3.75 pounds per skein, or about $7.50. I see that online U.S. prices are about $13 - $14, so I did get a bargain. Both stores also had some beads and other craft supplies. Liberty has always been one of my favorite stores. Outside it looks like a medieval castle, and inside the floors look down on a central atrium. The store has gorgeous fabric that always makes me wish that I sewed. There were also two non-department yarn stores on my list, but I didn't manage to get to either of them.

There are two bead stores within a block of each other in the Covent Garden area, London Bead Shop and The Bead Shop. Neither had anything that I couldn't find in the U.S. One was better than the other, although I've forgotten which! The better one had a good selection of seed beads and I bought some.

The new Swarovski Crystallized Cosmos and Lounge is trying hard to be hip and contemporary-looking. The beads are displayed in plastic drawers. The upstairs lounge serves champagne and fancy hors d'oeurvres, and had an exhibit of crystallized clothing.

Camden Town is a funky part of the city that borders on Regent's Canal, and is famous for its street markets. We spent a little time there with Jeffrey and Helene, looking for lunch and overwhelmed by the many food stalls. Later I went back by myself and bought this bag which is all a single zipper, and can be completely unzipped into a very long zipper. ("But why would you want to do that," Jeffrey asked when we first saw the booth. I don't really have an answer; I just thought it was nice and unique, and I have a bag stash that almost rivals my yarn and bead stashes.)

London Life

2008-07-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

Dateline: London, 28/6/08 - 6/7/08

I appreciate the signs that are painted on many London streets, reminding you which way to look for oncoming traffic. The arrow is an especially nice touch, in case you've forgotten which way "right" is.

Congestion pricing, which charges drivers to drive into the central part of the city, seems to be working well in London. Traffic seemed better than I remember from previous visits. Cars are very good about stopping for pedestrians. Too bad that New York recently rejected congestion pricing.

The Underground (affectionately known as the Tube), London's subway system, is convenient and usually easy to use. Wherever you are in the city, there's usually a Tube station nearby. But we found that often either individual stations or whole lines are closed. Frequently while we were there, the line we needed to take was closed because of "communication problems". The announcements about the closings were difficult for us to understand because of the British accents. We started looking online to see if there were Tube problems before we left our apartment. Usually it's not hard to re-route.

Riding the Tube requires a lot of walking and stair-climbing. Only the deepest stations have escalators, and a few have lifts. The stairs, plus all the walking I did, are probably the reason that I gained only 3 pounds during the trip. On this trip we took the Tube to and from Heathrow airport, which required a change of trains. It worked quite well, aside from having to carry our suitcases up or down some stairs, and also deal with the infamous "gap" between the train and the platform. (There's often a recorded warning to "mind the gap" when a train comes into a station.)

On my first visit, in 1971, people who saw me looking at a map in the street would often ask if I needed help, and sometimes even offer to walk me to my destination! That didn't happen this time, although a man on the Tube offered us help as we consulted the Tube map (turned out he was from Australia and had recently moved to London). When I asked some people for directions to Liberty, a well-known department store, the people I asked said they weren't from here and didn't know. I found it pretty much by accident, about a block away. But people were very friendly when we approached them with questions.

Prices are very expensive, especially with the pound now worth about 2 dollars. (For years it was worth about a dollar and a half.) In restaurants, prices would have looked a bit high if they had been in dollars, but looked extremely high considering they were in pounds. Our pre-theater afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason, a fancy department store that sells gourmet foods, came to 81 pounds, or $162. (Granted, it did include a glass of champagne.)

There wasn't much that was unique playing in London theaters. We saw We Will Rock You, a musical based on the rock group Queen. It has played in Las Vegas and I had planned to go see it there. Jim and I both liked it, even though it was loud, used lots of strobe lights, and had a flimsy plot that was really just an excuse for the music. We weren't exactly in its demographic, but we enjoyed it anyway.

Life in the apartment was mostly smooth, with just a few unusual occurrences. We brought electrical adapters so that we could charge our various electronics. Our dvd's wouldn't play in their player, so the Netflix we brought came home unused. (We didn't have much time for watching movies anyway, and I managed to do very little beading or knitting on the trip.) I loved the British water boiler appliance, which boils water hot enough for tea in seconds. (I've asked Jim to get me one for my birthday!) As I usually do while I'm in England, I became a tea drinker and even added milk and sugar, which I never do at home. Our only struggle was with the washer/dryer, a single machine that does both, but which refused to get our clothes dry, even after we ran it all night. I had to dry that day's underwear with a hair dryer, and we hung the rest of the clothes all over the apartment to dry. We never figured out whether we had done something wrong, or if that's just the way the machine worked.

Less Than an Hour by Train

2008-07-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Buckinghamshire, 2/7/08

"Less than an hour by train" is a phrase that Leonard Bernstein used to describe American suburbs in his 1950's opera Trouble in Tahiti. Travel less than an hour by train from London, and you're not in the suburbs, you're in the beautiful English countryside, in Buckinghamshire (abbreviated Bucks), a county north of London. We traveled here to spend the day with Jeffrey's old friends Richard and Judy, who live in the picturesque town of Stony Stratford.

Richard met our train in Milton Keynes, the largest city in Bucks, which from what we saw consists mostly of office buildings and shopping malls. We quickly drove out of Milton Keynes to the small town of Winslow, which had a farmer's market that day. We had lunch at a small sandwich shop that served delicious and unusual fillings, such as bacon and Stilton, on baguette.

After lunch we visited the village of Nether Winchendon, which according to Jeffrey's research is one of the most charming villages in Bucks. The village has no stores or restaurants, only houses and a church dating from the early 13th century. Richard pointed out the old mailbox; "V R" means that the mailbox was made during the reign of Queen Victoria. (Newer mailboxes say "E II R", which stands for the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.)

Our next stop was Claydon House, the ancestral home of the Verney family. The estate now belongs to the National Trust, although members of the family still live in one of the wings. The Verneys were associated with the English civil war in the 17th century, and also with Florence Nightingale, whose sister married a Verney, and who was a frequent visitor to Claydon.

We ended the day in Stony Stratford, where Richard and Judy's house is about a block from the main street. The town was beautifully decked out with flowers, part of an effort led by Judy to enter the town in a beautiful village competition. Stony Stratford is the place where the phrase "cock and bull story" originated, referring to two rival pubs. The town has no less than 6 Indian restaurants, and we ate at the one considered the best, Kardamom Lounge. That night the restaurant had its "gourmet special", where for 10 pounds each person could choose a starter, main dish, bread, side dish, rice, and dessert. The amount of food on the table was astounding, and even more astounding, the 7 of us managed to eat most of it. When we left the restaurant at around 10, there was still some daylight left, although it was completely dark by the time we got to the train station for the trip back to London.

Walking Around London

2008-07-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Dateline: London, 1/7/08 (July 1)

London is a great city for walking, and I feel as if I've walked around the whole city these past few days. I'm too tired to write a long post, but here are some pictures of the highlights.

Outside the British Library, where we saw manuscripts (including Beatles songs).

On the Tube.

The London Eye, seen from Green Park.

Walking across one of the Thames bridges.

Regents Canal (Jeffrey and Helene walked while we took a boat).

Waiting to board the London Eye (a slow-moving ferris wheel with large compartments, offering spectacular views of the city).

Parliament, seen from the Eye.

Returning to London

2008-06-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Dateline: London, 28/6/08

My three favorite cities in the world span 6000 miles: San Francisco, my adopted home city; New York, where I'm from; and London. My first visit to London was in 1971. I had just graduated from college and wanted to travel on my own, but didn't want to have to cope with a country where I didn't speak the language. Since England had not been on the itinerary for the trip to Europe with my parents in 1965, it seemed a good place for my trip.

In the '80's and early '90's I became a frequent visitor. I worked for a Boston company that had a London office and I was lucky enough to travel here a couple of times a year. I also went on two Rowan knitting tours in the UK. I developed a list of "my" places that I would go back to each time, for example a yarn store called Creativity which no longer exists, and a sandwich shop called Tea Time in Clapham Common, south of the Thames, which a google search shows is still there.

Since I added an extra 3000 miles between me and London by moving to California in 1994, I have not been able to visit as often. Jim and I were last here in 1998, for an occasion similar to this one but 10 years younger. We are here now to celebrate my cousin Jeffrey's 60th birthday; he and Helene will arrive from New Jersey tomorrow. In 1998 we celebrated his 50th birthday. Jeffrey is an Anglophile and once lived here for a year on a job and house exchange. I expect that we'll be celebrating his 70th birthday here in 2018.

Jim and I are renting a flat, which has become my favorite way to travel; usually cheaper than a hotel room, and it gives you more room and a taste of local life. Our flat is in a part of London that is new to me, the east end. We are close to Brick Lane, famous for Bengali immigrants and as a novel by Monica Ali which I read after finding out that we would be living here (and which has just come out as a movie). We arrived this afternoon after a long, uncomfortable flight with little sleep. (Air travel really has become very unpleasant.) After a short rest, we explored the area. Brick Lane is lively with restaurants, shops, and people of all colors and nationalities. We had dinner at a very good Punjabi restaurant. I was glad to find lots of coffee places, including one of London's 112 Starbucks on nearby Whitechappel St.

Brick Lane also has two beigel (sic) bakeries right next to each other. My onion bagel, actually a bialy (which has an indentation instead of a hole) looks like no other bagel or bialy I've ever seen. It looks more like an onion hamburger bun, but not as soft. At breakfast tomorrow I'll find out how it tastes.

Third Bracelet's a Charm

2008-06-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 6/26/08

This is a good example of my difficulties with bracelet length. I fell in love with this design, from Yvonne Rivero's book The Beaded Bracelet IV, when I saw samples at her store in Sacramento, U Bead It. My first attempt at making it came out too short for me. The problem is that the beads that connect the flower clusters are loose, but the last step in making the bracelet is to reinforce the entire length a few times, which tightened the bracelet more than I expected. I sent the bracelet to my mother, but it's also too short for her, so she will pass it on to her sister Roz (mother of my cousin Jeffrey) or to Jeffrey's daughter Emily.

In my second attempt, I overcompensated and made the bracelet too long. I sent it to Mary Beth for her sister Christina. The third attempt came out just right. I'm keeping it!

Bracelets for Mary Beth and Melody

2008-06-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 6/23/08

One of the most difficult things for me about making bracelets is getting the length right. Even if I know the recipient's wrist measurement, I'm not always good at sizing correctly. In my earlier beadwork, I didn't always take into account that the clasp adds an inch or more to the length of the bracelet. Many of my creations have been too large, including some bracelets that I made for my sister-in-law Mary Beth for Christmas. She passed them on to her sister Christina, and I offered to make Mary Beth a replacement. Mary Beth requested the peyote pod design that I learned in a class with Teresa Sullivan. I was glad to have the chance to make this design again and correct some of the flaws that crept in on my first attempt.

I also offered to make a bracelet for my friend Melody, a writer and librarian who lives in Maine and who recently started a blog. Melody and I worked together 30 years ago (I can hardly believe it was so long ago!) at NELINET. Melody requested the African criss-cross design I learned from Sylvia Lagos.

As a surprise, I also made a current favorite design for me, Mary Beth, and Melody. The design is from Yvonne Rivero's book The Beaded Bracelet IV. It's a great way to use bugle beads. From left to right, the bracelets below are for Mary Beth, Melody, and me. Melody collects teapots, so I used a teapot toggle clasp on hers.
Mary Beth and Melody, I'm putting your bracelets in the mail this afternoon. I hope the lengths are right!

More Beading Projects

2008-05-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 5/23/08

In addition to working on the projects I started in Portland, I've been taking some classes at local bead stores and also doing quite a bit of beading on my own. Some beading projects provide instant gratification, since they can be completed in a day or two. While I work I listen to podcasts (Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine and the New York Times Book Review are two of my favorites, which range from the ridiculous to the sublime) or sort of watch/mostly listen to tv shows on my laptop via the magic of Slingbox.

Here are pictures of some recent completed or in-progress beading projects. I don't mean to slight my knitting projects, but when I take pictures of them (which I'm behind on) I'll put them on Ravelry.

African Criss-Cross, with Sylvia Lagos

My first beading classes were with Sylvia at the Bead Asylum, a funky store across the Dumbarton Bridge in Newark, CA, and I continue to take her classes. Sylvia always has beautiful designs using basic stitches, and she's capable of teaching more than one project at a time, depending on what the students want to do. I gave this one to Dianne for her birthday.

Shimmering Pearls Collar, with Doris Ronan
This class was at 3 Beads and a Button, in Cupertino. I'm currently working on the overlay of crystals that go on top of the pearls.

Kumihimo seems to be popular now. A few weekends ago I went to two shows, a bead show in Oakland and a handweaving conference in Sacramento, and found vendors selling kumihimo supplies at both places. Here are two of my experiments with this technique.

Netting and Peyote Pods, with Teresa Sullivan
I took two classes with Teresa at Baubles and Beads in Berkeley. The peyote pods use increases and decreases to make a 3-dimensional effect. In the netting class we learned several variations, several of which I've since worked into completed bracelets.

The Beaded Bracelet IV, by Yvonne Rivero

I found this book at Yvonne's store, U Bead It in Sacramento. I bought all four books in the series; all of them have very nice projects. Here are the two I've completed so far. The flowered bracelet, on the left, came out too small for me, so I'll send it to my mother. The bracelet on the right is a variation of Sylvia's African criss-cross, but with bugle beads in the middle.

Cousin Jeffrey's 60th Birthday

2008-05-13T23:16:00.001-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 5/14/08

He was born the same day as the state of Israel, May 14, 1948. I was born one year and two months later. We spent a lot of our early childhood together. His mother, Roz, and my mother, Jean, are sisters, and we all lived in Passaic, NJ. My mother and I had moved in with her parents after my father left us. Jeffrey lived with his parents and older brother across town.

After my mother married my stepfather and we moved to New York City, Jeffrey and I continued to see each other a lot. My mother, her five siblings and their families often gathered at my grandparents' house on Sunday afternoons. I also spent a lot of my school vacations in Passaic. Jeffrey and I would make what we called a "game bowl". Each of us would write the names of games and other activities on little pieces of paper, which we folded and put into one of my grandmother's antique glass bowls. We would then draw from the bowl to determine what we would do next.

As teenagers, when we were old enough to travel to Manhattan alone, we would occasionally meet there for a day. We would start exchanging letters months in advance, planning our itinerary in every detail. I took the subway, he took the bus, and we met at the Port Authority bus terminal, in a mezzanine area we called the "three-quarters waiting room". We would then carry out our plan, which included libraries, music stores, and lunch at the Automat, a New York institution which sold food via coin-operated windows. Our greatest humiliation was being thrown out of the 42^nd Street library reading room one day because we were too young; we had been there before and didn't know there was an age restriction.

When my parents took my brother and me to Europe in the summer of 1965, Jeffrey went with us. At the end of the trip, we wrote our memories in rhyme in a poem called "We'll Remember Europe". This became the model for countless later poems written for birthdays, weddings, and other special occasions.

Our friendship continued when both of us were in college in New York. I tried, unsuccessfully, to set him up with some of my friends. He did set me up with one of his friends, my first real relationship, a man I almost married.

As adults, our lives and interests diverged somewhat. I moved to Michigan, Massachusetts, and then California; he stayed in New Jersey. He married twice and had several other relationships; I've been married to one man for 33 years. I changed jobs many times; he has had the same job, professor of music at a state university, for his entire career. He has two children; I have none. My taste in music runs to rock and folk; his is what he calls "serious" music and I call "classical". He reads more than I do, and is a better cook. He likes tennis and hiking; I have to force myself to do anything the least bit athletic. I'm good with computers; he's a reluctant computer user.

But we still have a lot of common interests: food; cats; movies; cities (we celebrated Jeffrey's 50th birthday in London; next month we will do the same for his 60th); some music; palindromes; coffee; The New York Times; our extended family. Our friendship and shared memories have been a constant in our adult lives, with one notorious exception. After his first wife left him, I wanted to remain friends with her; this made him angry and he didn't speak to me for a few years. Fortunately, we reconciled and resumed our friendship. Now we are in almost daily touch by email, with occasional Instant Message chats. We have helped to support each other through relationship breakups, illnesses, depression, children's problems, and deaths in the family. We get together at least once a year, with one of us crossing the country. We still plan our activities in great detail, but now by email and IM: which restaurants we'll eat at, what and when we'll cook at home, what trips we'll take.

Now we are talking about retiring in the same location so that once again we will be able to see each other as often as we did when we were children. Maybe in our old age, we will revert to game bowls.

Portland Project Pictures -- At Last!

2008-05-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 5/9/08

I don't know why I find taking and uploading pictures to be such a chore. It really isn't that hard! (But no, I still have no intention of putting my yarn stash up on Ravelry!) Anyway, here, at last, are the long-promised pictures of the beading projects I started in my classes at the Bead Expo in Portland.

Spiny Knotted Bracelet, designed by Stephanie Sersich
This is the only project I was able to finish during class. In fact, it's still the only project from Portland I've finished so far. It uses waxed linen to hold the beads and perle cotton to knot around them in a macrame-like technique. Stephanie handmakes glass beads, and some of the beads in my bracelet were made by her. The bead I'm using as the clasp (on top) was made by her friend and collaborator Michele Goldstein. I'm very happy with the way this came out and I plan to make more. (In fact, I impulsively bought what is probably a lifetime supply of waxed linen on EBay.)

Calypso, designed by Beth Kraft
This necklace involves beading around aluminum rings and stitching them together. The completed project will be 14 beaded rings, with unbeaded rings in between. Beth likes bright colors, as I do.

Wound Around, designed by Beth Kraft
For this Masai-inspired bracelet, beads are wound around a plastic tube and stuck to the tube with double-sided tape. I didn't find this technique as much fun as the other projects. I'm not very good at sticking the beads without ugly gaps. I hope I get back to this some day, though, because the completed bracelet can be very pretty.

Braided Ndebele Cuff, designed by Elizabeth Townes
This is the only "conventional" bead weaving project among the classes I took. The tubular ndebele (also called herringbone) stitch is used to make three strips, which are then braided together to make a bracelet. I'm enjoying working on this one. The copper is an unusual color choice for me, but I like it. (For all of these classes I bought kits made up by the teachers.)

Linga's Links, designed by Linda Best Shaen
This bracelet is made by making several separate pieces, then linking them with jump rings. There are three basic designs for the pieces, and I made one of each in class. I need to get back to this one and finish it. I don't look forward to the linking part, because working with jump rings and other wire techniques is not what I do best.

Walk Scores

2008-04-28T10:27:00.001-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 4/28/08

For several years I've been wishing to live in a place where I could walk to stores, restaurants, cafes. I love our house. We have amazing views, and it's nice to be able to walk to Edgewood Park. But I've found that I do more walking when the destinations are more practical. For example, there was the day last summer in New York when I walked 6 blocks through a downpour because I wanted a chopped salad for lunch. And I get tired of having to get into the car whenever I want a Starbucks iced latte, which is almost every day.

Thanks to the New York Times Magazine's green issue, I discovered a website that will help us find a walkable place to live, if and when we decide to move to a retirement spot. Given an address, Walk Score calculates a score from 1 to 100 based on the number of nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Our address got a dismal walk score of 12. My brother's address in Manhattan scored an almost-perfect 98. I was surprised it wasn't 100, because I imagine that anything you could possibly want is within walking distance when you live in 10021. For my mother's two addresses, Florida scored 38 and Forest Hills, Queens 86. My cousin Jeffrey's house in Ridgewood, NJ got a 48.

Just for fun (since we're not seriously looking to move right now; we've talked about it a lot over the years but haven't been able to make a decision) I somewhat randomly selected two houses that are currently for sale in each of the 4 California towns that come up most often when we talk about retirement spots, and looked up their Walk Scores:

Pacific Grove: 35 and 52
Half Moon Bay: 60 and 28
Cambria: 9 and 9
Sebastopol: 5 and 2

Apparently we could greatly improve our Walk Score by moving to Pacific Grove or Half Moon Bay. Both of these coastal towns also rate high on the other criteria I use in evaluating possible retirement places:

Yarn and Beads: Both towns have good yarn stores, Monarch Knitting in PG and Fengari in HMB. I don't know about beads in PG, but I know that HMB has at least one gift and jewelry store that also sells some beads.

Coffee: HMB has a Starbucks and recently acquired a Peet's. PG doesn't have chain coffee houses, but it has a very good cafe that custom brews individual cups of drip coffee, and there is a Starbucks in nearby Monterey.

Proximity to a large city (preferably San Francisco): HMB is on the San Mateo coast, and has the advantage that it's only about 15 miles from where we live now. I could easily continue activities such as knitting and beading groups. PG is farther away, but still only an hour and a half drive from where we live now.

I think we could find houses with better Walk Scores in Cambria and Sebastopol, but we would have to look harder. I love Cambria, which is on the coast halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but I've always felt that it was too isolated to live in. Sebastopol, north of here in Sonoma County, is one of my favorite day trip destinations. It's not quite as attractive to me since Sandi Rosner closed her store, the Knitting Workshop. But it still has lots of nice shops, including Buddies, a unique clothing store with a phoning list instead of a mailing list. Every once in a while I get voicemail telling me that they're having a sale and I should come up to Sebastopol. There's also Hard Core, an outdoor coffee shop that advertises "outrageous organic espresso".

After Jim retires in a few months, we'll start to think more seriously about whether or when we should move. And I'll use Walk Scores to help us find a spot that will satisfy my craving for places to walk to.

Coffee and Beads in San Francisco

2008-04-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

Dateline: San Francisco, 4/15/08

It started with an email from Starbucks. They were planning "something big" in San Francisco. They didn't say exactly what the "something big" was, but it was related to the introduction of their new Pike Place Roast. I doubted that the Starbucks event was worth a trip into San Francisco, but it seemed like a good excuse, because I don't get in to the City as often as I would like. And it would be a different way of accomplishing my (almost) daily walk, which is usually in the hills near our house.

I decided to take CalTrain, which involves less driving than BART. All I have to do is drive the three miles to downtown Redwood City and park in the all-day lot. The downside is that the CalTrain station is far from downtown San Francisco. It's very far south of Market, and those SoMa blocks are long. I thought I would go to General Bead, which is also south of Market, although pretty far from CalTrain. I also remembered Blue Bottle Cafe, recently opened by a local coffee roaster, which features a $20,000 coffee brewing machine.

At General Bead, most of the merchandise is behind the counter, with one sample of each item on the wall. Each item has a number; you make a list of what you want and the staff retrieves it for you. On my first visit, when I really didn't know what I was doing with beading, I didn't like this system. This time I found it an efficient way to shop. I soon had a list of several items, mostly clasps (which I find almost as interesting as the beads themselves). Upstairs there are bargains which are on the shelves for customers to browse. There's also an amazing inventory of glass buttons, which I sometimes use as clasps for bracelets. I could have bought a lot more, but I somehow limited myself to the scrumptious assortment above. (The one on the lower left features a cat.)

When I left General Bead I was ready for lunch. I looked at the map and found that I was within walking distance of Blue Bottle. The decor was modern and minimalist, with stools and counters instead of chairs and tables. The Machine looked like a chemistry lab, with beakers of water and coffee. I was in luck; they sold sandwiches. A lot of good cafes sell only pastries, which is not good if you want to have lunch. (Jim and I are always on the lookout for breakfast places that have both good coffee and more than just pastries. Usually places that have good breakfast food, like eggs and pancakes, have lousy coffee. Our favorite exception is Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, which has excellent coffee, food, and pastries. That's why we go there for breakfast almost every Saturday. But I digress.) I felt like having a cold drink, but I also wanted to try Machine coffee, so I asked and was assured that the iced coffee came from The Machine. The iced coffee was nice and strong, and the egg salad sandwich was good, and small enough to justify having a snack later.

I was starting to wonder whether I wouldn't get to the Starbucks event at all, which would be ironic. But I left Blue Bottle a little after 1, and the event was scheduled until 2:30. Since I was now close to Powell and Market, I decided to walk the rest of the way to Justin Herman Plaza. There I saw a Starbucks tent which contained Starbucks furniture, including several of the purple easy chairs they often have in their stores. They were giving away cups of Pike Place Roast and also small bags of Pike Place beans. I sat in a purple chair to rest and to drink my coffee, which was not hot enough. The Pike Place coffee is, of course, not strong enough for me, but I do find it smoother than other Starbucks coffee and it doesn't have that burnt taste.

After my coffee break, I took the short walk to the Ferry Building, first browsing at the craft tables across the street. A lot of nice jewelry, which I'm no longer very interested in buying now that I can make my own. At the Ferry Building I had my snack, a cup of Ciao Bella gelato.

The walk from the Ferry Building back to CalTrain was a lot longer than it looked on the map. Somehow streets I had never heard of kept appearing between streets with more familiar names. I walked up and down a hill on Harrison St., not very steep by San Francisco standards but it felt steep to me because I had been walking all day. As I walked I revised my train plans from taking the 3:07 to the 3:37. I started to regret my decision not to take a bus. I arrived at the station 5 minutes late for the 3:07. But there was good news: A special baseball train (for people going home from the Giants game) was scheduled to depart before the 3:37, and to go express to San Carlos, the stop right before Redwood City. This cut the train trip, which normally takes close to an hour, in half.

To sum up the day: A very nice day in the City, a lot of walking, good beads and coffee, and the Starbucks event was the least of it.

Home Again!

2008-04-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 4/2/08

I'm sure that, like Jocelyn, all of you are wondering if I made it home, or whether I'm lost somewhere between here and the Oregon border. I got home at 9:30 last night after driving all the way from Crescent City, about 350 miles. I decided that I just didn't want to spend another night at a motel. Jim had been hinting on the phone that he wanted me to come home, and any such expression from him is rare and needs to be listened to.

Monday was a bumbling day. After leaving Florence in the morning, I stopped in Coos Bay, OR and spent about a half hour trying to find a yarn store. Turned out that I had the wrong address, South Broadway instead of North Broadway. The GPS told me that the South Broadway address didn't exist. I tried to go there anyway, but South Broadway was very industrial; not a store of any kind in sight. Finally I used the iPhone, my omnipresent internet access, to find the right address, and then the GPS had trouble getting me there. She seemed to find Oregon and way northern California confusing. Often she would tell me, when I put in an address, that there were "unknown roads" and she couldn't give me turn-by-turn guidance. In other words, I was on my own. I stopped in a quilt store and asked about the yarn store. When I finally got there, it was closed Mondays. I continued south.

I had decided to stop for the night in Crescent City, the northernmost city on the California coast. It was good to be back in Cali (as the young man who checked me into the motel in Florence called it). The first thing I saw in Crescent City was a sign that said "YARN", so I made an unscheduled stop at a small but friendly yarn store. The owner, when she heard I was from Redwood City, knew where it was (most people think it's way north, where the redwoods are), and knew about Amazing Yarns and Creative Hands. I bought some Kraemer Yarns glittery brushed mohair, a bargain at 560 yards for $7.50.

Then came some more bumbling as I tried to find the Best Western and the GPS was no help at all. I circled around and around, and finally gave up in disgust. I couldn't decide on a different motel, so I decided to drive another 77 miles to Arcata, even though it was already 5 and I was tired of driving. I started driving south, and saw the Best Western about a mile down the road, not at all where the GPS told me it was. This just proves what my grandmother always told me when I lost something -- you'll find it when you stop looking for it. I checked in for the night, feeling that I had accomplished almost nothing all day.

Yesterday was better, even with the 350-mile drive. The weather was finally warm and sunny. I spent a nice few hours in Humboldt County, known for its marijuana growing and laid-back atmosphere. On the way to Arcata, I saw a sign about elk viewing and took a little detour. Right off the road was a field where I saw one animal that looked like a horse to me, but could have been an elk. I didn't get very close. In Arcata, home of Humboldt State University, I walked around the main square, visiting a bead store and a fiber/quilting/yarn store. Then on to Eureka, a relatively large town for which I had a list of 5 or 6 bead and yarn stores.

After lunch in Eureka, I took a short detour to visit Ferndale, a nearby small town with lots of Victorian houses. I really felt as if I had "stepped back in time", as the sign says. To get there, you exit from Route 101, cross a bridge over the Eel River, and drive through a few miles of bucolic fields (in the literal meaning; they are full of cows). I spent only about a half hour there, walking on the main street. I passed a yarn store, but it was closed Tuesdays (an unusual closing day for a yarn store).

My last Humboldt stop was in Garberville, a funky small town, where I visited Garden of Beadin'. I've seen this store at several shows and wanted to see it in person. A lot of their stock was not yet unpacked from the Portland show, but I managed to buy a few tubes of seed beads anyway.

It was at this point, leaving Garberville around 4:30, that I made the decision to drive all the way home, another 230 miles. I thought I could always stop if I got too tired, but luckily, I was alert for the entire trip. Up there, Route 101 alternates between stretches of freeway with a speed limit of 65, and winding mountain stretches where you have to slow down to 30. You never know what's coming, but the scenery is always beautiful. I stopped for dinner at the Hamburger Ranch in Cloverdale. Soon after that I passed Santa Rosa, and from there the trip was just like coming home from Sebastopol, a drive I've done many times.

I enjoyed my northern adventure, but I'm also happy to be home. I think I'll stick around here for a while. I don't have another trip planned until the end of June, when Jim and I are going to London to help my cousin Jeffrey celebrate his 60th birthday. To answer Jocelyn's question, I definitely bought more beads than yarn, although it's hard to tell because the beads take up less space. I've already incorporated them into my growing bead stash.

I'd like to thank my small group of faithful readers for keeping up with my blog and for all your comments. I owe you a post about my Bead Expo projects, and I'll do that, but since it involves taking pictures (which I still think of as a chore) it'll be a little while.

On the Coast

2008-03-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Florence, OR 3/30/08

After my last beading class this morning, I began my trip home via the coastal route. I was worried about snow on the winding coastal roads and considered changing plans, but there was only a little rain and the roads were not bad. The weather is still a lot colder than my California self is used to. (My Massachusetts self would not have had any trouble with it.)

When she heard that I was taking this trip, my friend and former coworker Kathy recommended that I stop in Yachats, a very cute and very small town on the coast. I planned to stay in Yachats tonight, but after arriving there at 4:30, I found that I had just missed the end of a crafts fair, and the restaurant that I chose on the web for breakfast was closed Monday. After a short walk around town, I decided to continue another 25 miles south to Florence, a much bigger town which is not directly on the coast. I feel more comfortable here, with less isolation. I've got a room at the Old Town Inn, where there is sporadic wireless service and an actual rotary dial phone in the room! Florence's picturesque downtown is on the Siuslaw River. I had a very good dinner at Mo's seafood restaurant, which has a great view of the river.

Route 101 here is the coastal road, not the major freeway it is in parts of California. It's two lanes, winding, and goes through small towns like Yachats. The coastal views are beautiful, but not as dramatic and spectacular as they are in California.

When I arrived in Yachats, one of the first things I saw was -- guess what? A bead store! It was the small, hippie-ish type that smells of incense and didn't have anything worth buying, especially after the extravaganza of a market at the Bead Expo. And on my way into Florence, I saw -- guess what? Another bead store, which I plan to visit tomorrow.

Yesterday I got caught in another hailstorm in Portland. After my class I drove to Hawthorne Blvd., a part of the city that one of the tourist publications described as the Haight Ashbury of Portland. I know and love Haight Ashbury, and Portland, this is no Haight Ashbury. It was perfectly pleasant, but more upscale than the Haight (but not as upscale as, say, Noe Valley). I had a nice lunch, bought some gifts for Moch and Noug in a cat store, was happy to see a Peet's coffee but still went to Starbucks instead, and then visited Powell's bookstore. The downtown Powell's, called Powell's City of Books, is truly huge, possibly even larger than the Strand in New York. The Hawthorne store is more like a Small Town of Books.

When I came out of Powell's it was hailing. I got in the car and drove to the Yarn Garden, which was on the way back to the hotel. If I hadn't found a parking space right in front of the store, I probably would have skipped it. But the store was pleasant, had several rooms full of yarn plus a cafe. The hail had stopped by the time I got to the hotel, but I decided that I didn't want to go out again. I bought a salad at Starbucks for dinner, and spent my last night in Portland in my room, watching a dvd of Lost, season 2.

Tomorrow promises warmer weather. And I hope to at least cross the border into California, where I hope all will be warm and sunny. Possible stop for tomorrow night: Crescent City.

Stumptown

2008-03-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Portland, OR 3/28/08

Stumptown is a nickname for Portland, a volunteer at the convention center told me. In the 19th century, when trees were cut to make way for roads, the stumps were left standing. Stumptown is also the name of a coffee roaster that I visited today. I read about it as an anti-Starbucks; when Starbucks recently started to use a fancy type of espresso machine, Stumptown announced that they would stop using the same machine. I thought Stumptown's coffee was good, but usually local roasters don't have the nice, oily French roast that is my favorite type of coffee.

I got to Stumptown by taking the light rail from the convention center. Public transit is free in the whole downtown area. While at Stumptown, I realized that I was right near Voodoo Doughnuts, an unusual doughnut store which Mary Beth told me about. But I couldn't eat a doughnut right after having a chewy chocolate cookie at Stumptown, could I? That would just be wrong! I went to look at Voodoo; the door was locked and a sign said that doughnuts were sold out until 3 o'clock.

On to Knit and Purl, a downtown yarn store that has a good stock of Kauni, an Estonian variegated yarn that is hard to find in the U.S. The lower floor contains sale yarns and a room labeled "Knitchen". After a walk through downtown in an unsuccessful search for a bead store that had moved, I found that it was 3:00 -- doughnut time! -- and I was only a few blocks from Voodoo. There was now a line going out the door.

On Voodoo's website they say they have a wedding chapel; a legal wedding is $175 including coffee and doughnuts for 10. They also offer Swahili lessons. I'm not sure I believe any of this, because it's such a small place. They feature a "Tex-ass challenge" -- a doughnut about 10 inches in diameter; if you eat it within 80 seconds it's free. They also have vegan doughnuts and ones with unusual toppings such as marshmallows. I opted for a chocolate doughnut with vanilla drizzle and chocolate sprinkles.

I just made it back to the light rail, eating my doughnut, when a big hailstorm started. It was snowing this morning, but by the time I got out of class the snow had ended and it was almost sunny. The hail was quickly over, but the weather is still much too cold for what I'm now used to after living in California for 14 years. I was glad to get back to the warmth of the convention center.

Yesterday, between bead classes and the market preview, I had a quick dinner at the food court at Lloyd Center, a mall that features the ice skating rink where Tanya Harding learned to skate.

I'll post soon about my classes, which I'm really enjoying.

Azillion Beads

2008-03-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Portland, OR 3/26/08

I awoke this morning to the news that a big rainstorm was expected this afternoon, especially in the areas north of Eugene -- exactly where I was driving. Oh, well, the drive couldn't be any worse than my drive on the yarn crawl and to the Quaker Center for our January retreat, could it?

Eugene seems like heaven for crafters. There were several Eugene yarn and bead stores on the list I had made from the web. I programmed the GPS for 5 destinations and sorted them into an order that seemed to involve the fewest trips across town. Soft Horizons has several rooms full of yarn in a cozy Victorian house. I was happy to see an extensive collection of bead knitting kits from Swallow Hill and from Deanna's Vintage Styles. They also had Deanna's beaded short row capelet, which I am currently knitting. I had worse luck with the other two yarn stores. The Knit Shop was in the process of moving to a different store in the same complex, and was temporarily closed. Northwest Peddlers doesn't seem to exist any more. That surprised me, because I think they used to come to Stitches West, but I called the two phone numbers and they had been disconnected.

The two bead stores I visited couldn't have been in more different parts of the city. Harlequin Beads is downtown, and had a great assortment of seed beads and other beads. To get to Azillion Beads, I went through an industrial part of town, and started to think that the GPS was steering me wrong, but then there it was. The friendly staff offered me a cup of tea and served it to me in a nice big mug. It tasted wonderful and was perfect for a cold and rainy day. I sipped my tea while browsing the store. They didn't have seed beads, which is mostly what I work with, but I did find several nice colors of beading wire.

I wanted to find a Starbucks. I wanted a hot latte, my favorite Starbucks sandwich for lunch (the egg salad on multigrain), and a New York Times. I used the GPS to find a nearby Starbucks and lucked out on all 3 items. Then I was ready for the drive to Portland. The rain was on-again, off-again, but not as bad as predicted. There was a lot of traffic coming into Portland, but the trip was otherwise uneventful.

It's nice now to be in the same hotel for 4 days, and to be able to unpack my things because I'm not going anywhere tomorrow, except to class. The hotel is across the river from downtown Portland and a block from the convention center. There's a Starbucks across the street, and also a light rail station where I can get a train into downtown. Hopefully I won't be doing much driving while I'm here. Portland has a very good public transit system and I plan to use it when I have free time from the Bead Expo.

Oregon

2008-03-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Eugene, OR 3/25/08

After leaving Yreka this morning, I passed a sign marking the highest elevation of I-5, 4310 feet at the Siskiyou summit. I noted an outside temperature of 37 degrees. After that it was a long, steep, foggy downhill drive into Ashland, the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a popular retirement community. Ashland is a small town full of stores, restaurants, and galleries. It was nice to do some walking as I checked out bead and clothing stores, and Websters yarn store.

Even I get tired of shopping once in a while. That's how I was feeling when I took off for Medford, about 20 miles from Ashland. I was planning to skip Middleford Yarn and Stitchery, which was on the list I made from the web, but I happened to pass it by accident and decided I was fated to stop in after all. It's a pretty big store with lots of needlepoint and knitting yarn.

Dancing Beads, in downtown Medford, was permanently closed. It looked like the closing was recent, since there were still boxes of merchandise in various stages of being packed up. Last time I was in Medford, several years ago, it looked to me like the downtown was in decline, and today's glimpse confirmed that idea.

At that point it was after 2, and I was dismayed to find out that I still had a 150-mile drive to Eugene, where I had already made a reservation at a Best Western. Unlike yesterday, when I drove 250 miles almost without thinking about it (and then another 100 later in the day), today the 150 miles seemed endless and I found myself getting dangerously tired. I finally made it to Eugene with no mishaps. Instead of giving in to tiredness, I went to dinner at Cafe Yumm, which serves bowls of rice, vegies, avocado and other good stuff, and lived up to its name.

Eugene seems full of yarn and bead stores, which I'll explore tomorrow (assuming I get my shopping energy back). Then comes the shortest drive so far, 100 miles to Portland, where my first Bead Expo class starts on Thursday morning.

Road Trip!

2008-03-24T22:20:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Yreka, 3/24/08

I'm on my way to Portland, OR, for a Bead Expo. I'm in the mood for a road trip, so I'm driving to Portland, about 700 miles from home. I'm allowing 3 days to get there, 4 days there, and 3 more days to drive home. The last time I did a road trip like this was a year and a half ago, and it included a different Portland. As soon as I knew that I wouldn't be working full time, I signed up for the Y2Knit retreat in Vermont. I also decided to go to Stitches East in Baltimore. I flew to Portland, ME and drove to Vermont, then to Baltimore via New York and New Jersey, visiting friends and family along the way.

For this trip I've got my own Prius instead of a rental car. It's nice not to have to worry about driving an unfamiliar car, and whether I'll have room for the things I take with me or buy along the way. And I've forgotten how I ever got anywhere before I had a car with a GPS.

People are sometimes surprised that I would want to make this kind of trip by myself. I'm somewhat of a loner, and I enjoy being by myself. I got used to traveling by myself by doing a lot of business travel in the 70's and 80's. I feel a great sense of freedom on a road trip by myself. I can stop wherever I want, eat wherever I want, linger in yarn and bead stores as long as I want. I don't mind driving long distances, as long as the weather is ok and I have my iPod or a good alternative rock station to keep me company.

This morning I drove about 4 hours with only one 5-minute stop at a rest area. After I left all the Bay Area traffic behind, it was smooth sailing up 505 and then north on I-5. The speed limit was 70 and there was not much traffic. I was tempted to stop at the Olive Pit in Corning, but I didn't want to be dissuaded from my original plan. By the time I saw the sign that the Olive Pit had free wireless, I was already passing the exit and it was too late. So I continued on to Redding, a town about the size of Redwood City at the northernmost point of California's Central Valley. Yaks Koffee, which I found on the web, proved to be a great place for lunch, a friendly and comfortable cafe with good food and free wireless. The coconut cream mocha was as good as it sounded when I read about it on the website. Starbucks is always a familiar friend when I'm on the road, but if I can find a good, local, non-chain cafe I'm always eager to try it.

I was skeptical about Sew What because it is mostly a quilting store, but it also has a respectable yarn department. I enjoyed visiting The Beadman. Half of the store has beads, and the other half has tie-dye, belly dancing costumes, and other hippieish items. I bought a lime green tie-dyed teeshirt, some seed beads, and a book about beading spirals (I've recently learned to make Russian spirals and spiral ropes). The store gave me a 10% discount for admitting that I was over 55.

As I left the city that bills itself as "the second sunniest city in the nation" (it doesn't say who comes in first) it was raining. I was about to start the shorter but more difficult part of today's drive, into the Cascade Mountains. I had seen snow on the mountains on the way up I-5 so I was worried about snow and ice, but the road was clear, despite ominous signs saying "ICY", "Watch for Snow", and "Chain Installation, right shoulder only". There was some spectacular scenery, especially as I passed Shasta Lake, and the sun came out again. I took a detour through Weed, mostly because of the name, and got lost in some nice countryside where there was snow on the ground despite temperatures in the 50's. The GPS had nothing to say, and I finally blundered my way back to I-5.

Yreka (pronounced "why-reek-a") is an old gold mining town in very northern California, close to the Oregon border. I've got a motel room for the night. I'm now about half-way to Portland, leaving plenty of time for exploring Oregon tomorrow and Wednesday.

Great Balls of Yarn and Beads Gone Wild

2008-03-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Lake Worth, Florida, 3/19/08

This is not a knitting or beading trip. Jim and I are here to visit my mother, who for many years has spent her winters here and her summers in New York. For a long time I disliked south Florida, much preferring to visit my family in New York. For one thing, it wasn't possible to find a decent cup of coffee. I love coffee, but I like it very strong and flavorful, and I'd rather go without than drink coffee that I consider sub-standard. There's a yarn store not far from my mother's house, but the staff was not friendly to people like me who were not regular customers. And we couldn't seem to find many activities that appealed to us here. The area is full of strip malls and housing developments.

But over the years, things have improved a lot. There are now several Starbucks in the area, although they're nowhere near as prevalent as they are, say, in San Francisco or New York. Don't get me wrong; I don't think that Starbucks has the best coffee in the world. (Right now I would give that award to Gaylord's on Piedmont Ave. in Oakland.) But at least Starbucks is good, and consistent. While traveling I like to collect Starbucks the same way I collect yarn, and now beads. I wish I had thought of doing the Starbucks Everywhere blog.

The yarn store near my mother has changed hands and is now much friendlier. There's also a new chain of yarn stores, Great Balls of Yarn, which has no less than 5 locations in the area. My mother and I went to the flagship store in West Palm Beach and found a lot of upscale yarn, beautifully displayed by color. And what did I buy? A package of Twisted Sisters beads! Things have really changed when I can go to a great yarn store and not buy any yarn.

I wasn't so restrained at a fantastic bead store, Crystal Creations Bead Institute, which also has a website called Beads Gone Wild. I bought a bracelet kit, several bead weaving patterns, a toggle clasp in the shape of infinity, and of course some beads. This store has lots of great classes, almost making me wish I lived in the area and could take classes there. My sister-in-law Mary Beth is catching the beading bug from me, and bought some beads too. My 8-year-old nephew Max and my mother were both bored and kept urging us to finish our bead shopping and go home.

For non-shopping activities, we've found some nature walks that we enjoy in the area. This time we went to Green Cay Wetlands, which has a very nice boardwalk that enables you to see lots of birds and other wildlife. We saw turtles and even an aligator. Mary Beth is a bird watcher and particularly enjoyed this walk.

City Place, the Santana Row of West Palm Beach, is the antidote for all those strip malls. It has lots of chain stores, now two Starbucks, movie theaters, and several good restaurants. We ate at Legal Seafood, which used to be one of our favorite restaurants when we lived in the Boston area. It's now all over the east coast, and a lot more upscale than when we used to wait in line for hours at Inman Square in the 70's.

Stitches West

2008-02-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Santa Clara, 2/21/08 - 2/24/08

Last weekend was the event that California knitters look forward to all year: Stitches West. This Stitches was said to be the biggest ever, with 1700 attendees, surpassing even Stitches East. It was an exhilarating but exhausting weekend. I commuted (it's hard to justify staying in a hotel a half hour from home), leaving early in the morning and usually getting home after 10 p.m. Here are the highlights for me.

Wrapped in Comfort Shawls

At the student fashion show, ten members of the South Bay Knitters group modeled shawls that we had knit from our member Alison Hyde's book Wrapped in Comfort. Of course we all wanted to go on stage together, and an XRX staff member said that we could if we submitted all of our forms at the same time, which we did. But there was some confusion when another staff member apparently alphabetized all of the forms, and Rick started calling us up individually. That was straightened out and we were all called onstage, lining up between the emcees and each being introduced and taking our trip down the runway. The first picture above shows us on stage with Rick, one of the emcees. In the second picture, Alison is seated in front of the modelers.

Kumihimo

I took a class with Candace Eisner Strick in this traditional Japanese braiding technique. We used a styrofoam disk, although more expensive and fancier braiding looms are available. Strands of fiber, some with beads, are moved across the disk in regular patterns. The pattern we used created a spiral effect with the beads. My first attempt doesn't look very good, but I'm working on a second one.

Knitting with Wire

This class was taught by Nancie Wiseman, with whom I also took crochet with wire at TKGA last fall. I'm happy with this necklace that I made in class, although you could say that it's edgy (or weird?).

Shopping!

Of course the market, with 250 vendors, is a highlight of the event for everyone. This year I took a lighter than usual class load (half day classes), leaving me more time to browse the market. I was glad to see more booths than usual that sold beads. I even bought a pair of shoes, from Fine Points (which also sells yarn), after admiring shoes bought by Deborah and Diana at the Yarndogs booth.

Scarf clasps are an accessory that I've wished for. These were made by Vicky Reinke, who had a booth at Stitches and also has an eBay store called Final Touch by Design. I think I can use my beading skills to make some of these.

General Observations

I liked Stitches West better when it was in Oakland. I understand that it's grown too large for the Oakland facility, and that's good. But as a city person, I always enjoyed spending a weekend in downtown Oakland, which has acquired more stores, cafes and restaurants in recent years. Santa Clara is so suburban by comparison, and there are not many good restaurants nearby. For dinner before the market preview, our group treks to Milpitas, which is not exactly known for its fine dining (and was once the subject of a local newspaper article proclaiming "Milpitas doesn't suck").

I always lament that there are two evenings taken up by banquets, although I always go to both, because I wouldn't want to miss anything. In the early days, the professional and student fashion shows were combined into one, creating an even longer evening. The recent innovation, separating the professional fashion show from the dinner, has turned out to be a good idea. The first time they did this I thought, we won't be done with dinner until midnight! But XRX has sped up the fashion show, and having it in a theater makes it easier to see the fashions.

My door prize non-winning streak continues. There are so many door prizes given out in so many venues -- the market, the fashion show, the two dinners -- and as usual, the only thing I win is one of the table prizes that are given to everyone at the banquet. I'm glad that Rick has toned down the making people shriek for their prizes, which I always found embarrassing.

There was a lot of buzz about Ravelry, the new social networking site for knitters, of which I'm a member and a fan. Ravelry had a booth at the market, and gave out passports which made you eligible for prizes if you got stamps from all of the booths listed in the passport. (I completed my passport but didn't win anything there either.)

Gardening with Beads

2008-02-18T11:33:00.001-08:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 2/18/08

I really enjoy working with flower and fruit beads. When I was just getting started with beading, I went to a bead store in San Jose that was going out of business, and bought a bunch of fruit beads for half price. At the time I had no idea what I would do with them. Later I found, on YouTube of all places, instructions for making a crocheted necklace with wire and beads. (The video is from the Karla Kam, a great series of beading instructions by Karla of Auntie's Beads.) The necklace is made by stringing beads onto 3 strands of wire, crocheting each strand individually, then braiding the 3 strands together. Here's my first attempt:

Later I decided that this crocheted necklace would be a good use for my fruit beads:

I bought this fringe bracelet kit from Deanna's Vintage Styles at Stitches West in 2007. It's made by first stringing beads for the core, then weaving a variety of flower, leaf and seed beads into the core. I made several passes of weaving, completely hiding the core and giving the bracelet a nice density:

This is a different type of fringe bracelet. There is only one pass of weaving, so the core is not hidden, and the bracelet is less dense. I bought this kit at a bead store in Morro Bay:

Beading FO's from Hawaii

2008-02-06T09:56:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 2/6/08

I've finished all of the beading projects I started in Hawaii. In addition to the Swag Lace Necklace, which I featured in a previous post, they are:

Graduated Spiral Necklace, designed by Cindy Pankopf. Beads are strung for the core, then fringes are woven into the core to form the spiral. Cindy helped me choose colors over the phone before the Bead Away, and she did a great job.

Just Duet Cuff, designed by Wendy Remmers. This bracelet is reversible, and has a different color scheme on each side. The technique is similar to the spiral; first you make the core with herringbone stitch, then weave fringes into the core.

Crochet Away, taught by Katharine Rita. Freeform crochet with wire and beads. My crocheting is so loose that I used the wire very fast and kept having to add more.

Sugar Cube bracelet. This is the project I started at a weekly class held at the Maui Bead Shack. I started it over again at home, because I found that using SoftFlex wire without a needle made it difficult to weave into the beads. When I restarted I used Fireline with needles.

Torn Between Two Loves

2008-01-30T11:01:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 1/30/08

Is it possible to have committed relationships with two crafts at the same time? While not exactly neglecting my first love, knitting, lately I've been more excited by my new love, beading. It was actually my first love that introduced me to my new one. It all started when I took a Beaded Shawlette class from Judy Pascale at Stitches West a few years ago. I fell in love with Judy's design and with her technique of adding beads to the knitting with a crochet hook, and I immediately started to make a Beaded Shawlette. I eventually made 4 of them, keeping one for myself and giving the others to my mother (for her 80th birthday), my sister-in-law Mary Beth, and my friend Dianne. Many of my friends in the South Bay Knitters group started making Beaded Shawlettes also; we put in a group order with Caravan Beads in Maine and had a shawlette party at my house.

So my obsession with beads began. After several more beaded knitting projects, including the River Rock Scarf (pictured) from the book No Sheep for You, it occurred to me that there were other things that I could do with beads, and I started taking bead weaving classes at local bead stores last fall. In my knitting, I used only size 6 seed beads. I found out that size 6 are relatively large seed beads, and that sizes 8 and 11 are more commonly used in bead weaving. (The higher the number, the smaller the bead.)

In learning to bead, I've been able to use my knitting experience as I've found a lot of similarities between the two crafts. There are similar issues of design, color choice, gauge, and suitability of particular beads for a specific project. Beaders, like knitters, have stash, and organize UFO nights to work on their unfinished projects. But there are also some differences I've found between beading and knitting.

Stash size: So far, my bead stash fits in about 5 small plastic boxes and one drawer in my yarn room. I wish I could say the same for my yarn stash!

Project-oriented classes: All of the beading classes that I've taken have been built around a specific project, rather than a technique or design principle. In class you at least start, and sometimes even finish, a project. I love classes like that! They exist in knitting but are much less common.

Project length: Most beading projects take only a few hours to a few days to complete. Gratification is faster, and I get to start new projects more often.

Multitasking: I do almost all of my knitting while watching television. Most of my evenings are spent in front of the TV, knitting (or crocheting). I'm not proud of watching so much TV, but I rationalize it by thinking that I'm accomplishing something productive at the same time. When I come to a difficult part of the pattern, I pause the Tivo while I think it through, then go back to my program. I can't bead and watch TV at the same time, however. There are all those loose beads and other supplies, requiring me to sit at a table, and I have to pay closer attention to what I'm doing. But beading is great for listening to music or podcasts.

Fortunately, retirement has given me a lot of time to work on both beading and knitting. Instead of having to choose between my two loves, I will continue to be a bigamist as far as crafts are concerned.

Maui Yarn Crawl

2008-01-25T10:19:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Maui, 1/12/08 - 1/16/08

As soon as you get off the plane in Maui, a relaxed feeling comes over you. The fragrance of flowers is in the air. A gentle breeze is blowing. The weather is warm but not hot. The scenery is beautiful, mountains and sea, even on the road from the airport. So how do I spend my time in this paradise? Going to yarn stores and bead stores!

Well, not all of my time. We do manage to get in some beach and pool time, a whale watch (this is whale season in Hawaii and we saw a lot of activity), a submarine tour, a coastal walk, and a performance of Ulalena, which interprets Hawaiian myths and legends in dance. Not to mention some great food at restaurants like Mama's Fish House and Pacific'o.

Yarn stores in Hawaii are different from the stores I usually frequent. There's very little wool (are you surprised?). Lots of cotton and novelty yarns. Less emphasis on knitting, and more on needlepoint, crochet and quilting.

Before the trip I looked on the web for Maui yarn stores and found some helpful information on M.K. Carroll's blog. The Needlework Shop is conveniently located right next door to our hotel in Lahaina. I couldn't resist buying some locally hand-dyed wool, which comes in luscious colors with names like Maui Sunset. My two skeins of Ripe Pineapple are pictured. At Yarn & Needlecraft, there were a lot of crocheted leis, and the woman in the store was nice enough to show me how to make one. It involves crocheting around a piece of grosgrain ribbon. I bought some ribbon and yarn, and also a book called Making Eyelash Crochet Leis 2. (By happy coincidence I also found book 1 at the airport in Honolulu as we were about to leave for home.) So now I have another UFO.

I also enjoyed traveling around the island to 3 bead stores. My favorite was Aloha Bead Company, in Paia, a small town with a hippie-ish reputation. (I love towns like that!) Aloha had beautiful garden bracelet kits, and I have to admit I bought 2. Maui Bead Shack, despite its name, is in a big mall near the airport. I was delighted to find that they offer certain classes each week, and that I was able to take the Sugar Cube bracelet class and still get back to Lahaina in time for the Ulalena performance. (Maui is small, but the roads are not fast, and the 20 miles from the mall to Lahaina took about 45 minutes.) I was the only student in the class, and had a great time. I also enjoyed visiting Maui Beads of Paradise.

Beading in Paradise

2008-01-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Waikiki, Honolulu, 1/16 - 1/21/08

Waikiki might be the perfect vacation spot for Jim and me. Where else could you stay at a hotel that has beach on one side and big city on the other? I'm really a city person, even though we've lived in the suburbs for most of our married life. I love walking out of the hotel and finding cafes and stores. Jim, on the other hand, is not a city person. He prefers vacations where you can relax on the beach. I like the beach too, for an hour or so at a time. And this beach is beautiful -- clean sand, few rocks, and a great view of Diamond Head.

We went to Honolulu for the first Bead Away, a beading retreat jointly organized by Brea Beadworks in the LA area, and Bead It in Honolulu. I was impressed by how well-organized this retreat was. There were several corporate sponsors, lots of door prizes and refreshments. It was nice to have teachers and students from both Hawaii and California (plus a few students from other states).

Beading seems to be very popular in Hawaii. Even on Maui, with a population of 140,000, I found 3 bead stores. The first day of the Bead Away we had a bead store tour. The organizers rented vans and took us to 4 stores in Honolulu. Of course I did a lot of buying, and finding out about the stock market crash on my iPhone in the middle of the tour didn't stop me. Luckily, beads are a lot smaller then yarn, making new purchases easier to carry home and to find a home in your stash.

My classes at Bead Away were a lot of fun, and just the right level for me, now a beginning/intermediate beadweaver. I took two classes with Cindy Pankopf, a designer who works at the Brea store. The Graduated Spiral Necklace was my first experience with spirals. After dinner with Jim at the Kobe Steakhouse, I finished the Swag Lace Necklace, pictured, at the Bead the Night Away session on Saturday night. With Wendy Remmers, one of the owners of the Brea store, I started the Just Duet cuff, a good introduction to herringbone stitch. I also took a crochet with wire class with Katherine Rita, from the Bead It store, and made a pendant.

Me? A Blogger?

2008-01-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 1/22/08

I never thought I would be writing a blog. Several of my knitting friends have blogs, but I always thought I didn't have enough to say. Does the world really need another blog about knitting? But then Vivian, after hearing that I was in Hawaii for a bead retreat, suggested that I start a blog about my knitting and beading travels.

Vivian's suggestion really started me thinking. For over 20 years I've been traveling in pursuit of my yarn obsession. I was at the very first Stitches, the one in Cherry Hill, New Jersey where the market was in a racetrack and the banquet was in a tent. I went on two Rowan tours in the late 80's/early 90's, one to Scotland with Erika Knight, and the other to Ireland with Alice Starmore. Since I stopped working full time a year and a half ago, my travel has increased. During that time, I've traveled to Shelburne, VT, Baltimore, MD, Tacoma, WA, Taos, NM, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, all for knitting events. And recently I've started to add beading trips to my knitting itinerary. So maybe I do have a unique perspective. And I've always enjoyed writing. So here I am, starting a blog.

I gave a lot of thought to the title. Since I will be reporting from various locales, I wanted to pay tribute to my favorite newspaper. Still a New Yorker at heart, even though it's been 35 years since I lived there, I've been reading the New York Times all of my life. Even when I travel, I buy the Times every day if I can find it.

The Times part of the title has an additional meaning. Now that I'm retired, I'm devoting full time to the things I love to do, and I'm really having the Times of my Life. So I will write here not just about my travels, knitting, and beading, but about retirement, life with Jim and the cats, and other things that might enter my mind from time to time.