SuperEggplant

Peter is planning to spray the first coat onto the house tomorrow, so today he and Jon (Hedi’s hubby) masked and covered all the windows with plastic. I feel like I am in my own little biosphere right now!
Today I went to a local gourmet cookware store that is going out of business. The proprietor, a very nice woman, couldn’t make ends meet (we live in WalMart heaven around here), so she is shutting down and moving to Michigan to be closer to family. Everything was on sale, so I got some gadgets and stuff, including some ramekins (I can finally make proper creme brulee!), a jar lifter (in case I want to can), and these:

I must confess I bought the lime squeezer primarily because I liked the color.
I am finishing up the top ribbing on the ChicKami, and I should finish the whole shebang tonight or tomorrow! Woohoo! I hope the thing fits. If it doesn’t, well, that won’t be anything new. After this, I will resume knitting on the Becky Wannabe Sweater. I just received my 4mm straight Addi Turbo needles from JKL Needles, so I’m good to go. I want to get it finished before my trip to Portland, OR, at the end of September.
It’s good to hear I am not the only a) sucker for marketing and packaging, and b) one who was disappointed with the groovy M&Ms. Speaking of falling for ads, does anyone else totally want one of those new PaperMate pens based on the commercial with the flight attendant loaning her pen to some passenger then going to his house in the rain to retrieve it? The look of joy on her face when she gets her pen back made me want to run out to the nearest office supply store to buy one. Wanna hear something really sick? Today I went to the PaperMate web site to figure out the exact model of that pen. It looks like a regular ball point pen, so it will probably be a disappointment, but hey, the dream still lives!

This morning a woman was attacked and killed by a shark (it’s not confirmed yet that it was a shark, but it is pretty likely) at Avila. THAT IS WHERE PETER HAS HIS BOAT. How creepy is that? Plus, Peter jumped into the water last weekend when he visited the boat! This poor woman was going for her daily swim around the pier when she was attacked. Very scary and very sad.
And now for something completely different, today I went to Target and bought some of the new groovy M&Ms. I am a sucker for packaging and for, well, COLOR. I was a bit disappointed with the M&Ms. I had envisioned them to be swirls of color, but instead it looks like a bunch of M&Ms were accidentally dropped into a pile of crunched up chips of M&M coating:

I started on the top ribbing of the ChicKami last night only to discover that I was following the incorrect section of the pattern! I want to make the wide straps, but I was following the directions for, I dunno, the skinny straps, I guess. Now I have to dismantle (or “frog,” I guess the correct terminology is) it and redo it. It’s not a large section, though, so it should be fine as long as I don’t drop stitches at the ends.

It is an embarrassing time to be a Californian, and it will be even more embarrassing if Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes governor. People are so enamored of movie stars, though, that it is looking pretty likely that Arnie will win. Oh well, I am just grateful I am a native Oregonian (though things are not so smooth up there, either).
My friend Lulu and her family stopped by today on their way to Santa Barbara for their first real vacation in years. I should have taken a photo of her son and twin girls, but I did not. You’ll just have to take my word that they are cute. Here instead is a photo of Brush Lady (next to the tofu head figurine), which Lulu gave me:

She will clean my keyboard. I eat at my desk all the time, so Brush Lady is going to have her work cut out for her!
In knitting news, I finally managed to do some knitting last night. I began the raglan armhole shaping on the ChicKami. I’m afraid it is looking kind of holey, since I am a holey knitter, but the pattern itself is quite amazing. The armhole shaping looks neato. I never could have come up with the pattern! That Bonne Marie is truly an amazing knitter and designer!

I was going to give a breakdown of our vacation, since I can’t really think of anything to write about today (I didn’t knit last night because I fell asleep pretty early), but then I decided that would be cruel and dull (I still might do it at some point, though). Instead, I will mention a few random things, such as the wonder of Marshmallow Fluff. I have not yet made a fluffernutter sandwich, though this morning I almost had fluffernutter toast. Fluff is unlike Marshmallow Creme, the closest thing the west coast has to Fluff. Fluff is, well, FLUFFY and whipped. I can’t wait to try it in hot chocolate! And you know, there must be something wrong with Kerstin’s kids, since they don’t seem to fancy it (by the way, I figured out how to use my phone, Kerstin, but you didn’t call! Guess I’ll just have to go back to Boston someday!).
Another thing I must mention is the wonderful Mexican restaurant where we had dinner on the way home from the San Jose airport. It’s in Salinas and is called La Fogata. I had read about it on Chowhound’s California board. It’s owned by a Japanese guy, so it was very surreal ordering Mexican food in Japanese. Great food, though, and friendly service!
One last thing–I had my first real cannoli in Boston. It was from Mike’s Pastry, which is supposed to be the king of all cannoli bakeries. It was very, very tasty, and I encourage anyone who visits Boston to try one.

Oy, I don’t even know if I remember how to post an entry! Two weeks is a long time, and we covered a lot of ground, baby. We went to Boston, NYC (covered most of Manhattan), the coast of Maine, and Rhode Island. It was great fun, and we had lots of little discoveries and mini adventures. One highlight was trekking through the lower east side of Manhattan in search of Il Laboratorio del Gelato. Nobody had heard of it, and it wasn’t in the phone book. We walked along basically abandoned streets and finally came upon one cute little street with boutiques and such, and there it was! We were served by the owner himself, so it was like getting waited upon by a celebrity! Other great ice cream we had included Christina’s and Toscanini’s, both in Cambridge, MA.
In terms of knitting, I did not buy any yarn, but I visited several yarn stores. In NYC we went by the Yarn Co. (we happened to park RIGHT SMACK DAB in front of it when we went to Zabar’s), and in Cambridge I went to Woolcott and Co. In Maine I dropped into a yarn shop in Portland (they told us where to get lunch–the Portland Public Market) and one in Camden. All very cute and busy, too!
I was able to manage a bit of progress on ChicKami. I just have a few more rows to go before I start the armholes!

I’m going to make the wide straps, and I think after I wash it and the cotton tightens up, I will really like it. (Please note the jar of Marshmallow Fluff. It is unavailable on the west coast!! I bought a container for Hedi’s husband, who grew up on the stuff and loves fluffernutter sandwiches, one for my brother, who requested it and, though he graduated from MIT, has never tasted it, and one for myself. I tried it today, and it is sublime. I kind of like saying yummy foods are “sublime,” but it’s kind of pretentious, too, isn’t it?).
Okay, that’s all for now! Vacation was fun, but it is nice to get back to a non-humid area! More tidbits later …

Mariko is on vacation, so it’s maintenance time.
This is Mariko’s brother. I’ve just spent the past several days trying to move this site from one machine to another. So far, so good, I think.
It’s been rather a painful process (movable type is never very obvious from an administrative standpoint) but I’m a geek and really have nothing better to do than hide from the hot round circle in the sky. Oregonians aren’t used to this 100 degree weather.
I suppose I’m hiding from my Gradual School studies as well.
Fortunately, I did this all while Mariko wasn’t looking. If you see any problems, send me email at:
htodd(at)twofifty(dot)com
Thanks!
Sashi

We are leaving for vacation Tuesday morning, and we won’t be back for 2 weeks! There will most likely be no blogging during this time, but if you see us (ha ha) in NYC, Boston, or Maine, please say hello!
Tonight we had the family over for a barbecue, and it was quite fun. We had burgers, but to fancy them up a bit, I made carmelized onions (though I didn’t eat any, since onions make me gag) and a cheese sauce that uses beer (from a past Food & Wine). They were yummy! I also made a pasta salad that had kalamata olives, red bell pepper, broccoli, pasta (duh), and feta cheese plus three kinds of ice cream: the peanut butter fro yo from last week, decaf coffee ice cream, and chocolate ice cream.
Any torture done to Hello Kitty or other felines is strictly the work of my crazy brother. He is the webmaster and computer geek of the family, so I’m afraid I am often rendered helpless in my own blog world.
Arrivederci, au revoir, hasta la vista, farewell. Come back in two weeks, please!

We are getting ready for our vacation back east, so I posted on Chowhound to ask about good places to eat in Maine. Hello, I received numerous responses as well as 16 documents about where to eat in Maine! I guess they don’t let you leave the state without trying a lobster roll or two. And you know what? Until about a week ago, I had never even HEARD of a lobster roll! We are also going to Boston and NYC. It should be a fun and overwhelming trip.
Today I went to a free koto and shakuhachi concert. I was forced to take koto lessons during my childhood (and adulthood for a bit, too), and this ensemble played a bunch of familiar classics, so I was assaulted by some powerful flashbacks! I am so glad I no longer have to perform in recitals of any kind!
I knit a few more rows of the Becky Wannabe Sweater, but then I got sleepy and fell asleep on the couch. I’m going to try to knit some more this evening, but we might watch the Japanese version of The Ring, and I have to read the subtitles, so I don’t know how productive the knitting session is going to be. Also, it’s supposed to be really stinkin’ scary, so my hands might be shaking too much to knit!