The end of an era...

So my birthday's tomorrow, and it's got me a little weirded out. Not all angsty like my 25th did ("OMG will I have to act like an adult now?" Thank FSM I got over that idea!) But still, I'm officially entering my Late Thirties, and it does give one pause. Mr.Q seems to think that I'm on the brink of an existential crisis, however, so he's been rather spoiling me for the last week or so.

We went to see John Prine in concert on Friday, which was amazing! His opening act was good, and he...was magical. His energy never let up, and he played for over 2 hours straight - with the biggest, shit-eatingest, ear-to-ear grin on his face for every minute of it. There's something awfully cool about watching somebody who's having that much fun on stage! And he was quite the gentleman - humble, not ego-centric at all - and bloody hilarious. It was (though I hate to say it!) even worth being gouged in service charges.

On the way home from Seattle last weekend, we had discussed the possibility of getting me a new camera for my birthday. I did a little research during the week, and on Saturday, we went out and found a wee (blue!) Sony Cyber-shot that I've been having too much fun with ever since.

Some of my first experiments...

Obligatory cat shot:

Playing with the automatic "Smile Shutter"

More of the tremendously energetic felines (and husband):

Knitting:

And - if I wasn't spoiled enough - Mr.Q gave me these over the weekend, too.

To top things off - I had taken tomorrow off of work, for a day of decadent self-indulgence (which means sleeping in till at least seven o'clock!)...but on the way to work today, I got a call that a water cooler on the top floor had burst, and flooded everything below...so the school was closed for the day. Surprise 4-day weekend!

So I'm back home in my fuzzy robe, figuring out how to download pics from the camera, updating Ravelry pages, and considering an afternoon of knitting & people-watching at the coffee shop. Though the cats may have the right idea....Guess what they're doing?

(Hint: if your guess involves any kind of activity, you're way off base...)

All Aboard!

A late, quick photo-essay of our Thanksgiving weekend train adventure to Seattle...

An early (early!) start:


Each of us doing what we love best (and Mr.Q quite tickled that he could buy a beer before 9:00 a.m.)

Travel Scrabble - Mr.Q's creative use of language not at all related to the pre-9:00 a.m. beer:
Playing tourist...At the Science Fiction Museum (very cool, but not nearly enough Star Wars, and sadly lacking in Dr.Who, Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly)

The Experience Music Project - we both felt it was kind of "meh", but there was a theramin we got to play with. And an upright bass in a giant instrument tree:

Up the Space Needle:


Night view, walking back to the hotel from dinner:

Pike Place in the morning (started my Christmas shopping...too early?)

Finally found a decent cup of coffee, which was surprisingly hard to do in a city that prides itself so much on its java...Uptown Espresso, where I enjoyed a fabulous Caffe Vienna & knat while Mr.Q found (another) record store:

Finally on the way home again....it amused me to watch the engine pulling the train around the corners... Missed having turkey but might just cook one up this weekend. The tuna casserole we had on Monday just didn't cut it. I need a pumpkin pie, too.

(And - my, but we do live in a beautiful corner of the world! Nice to see a little more of it!)

Nom nom nom!

Beef stew in the slow cooker. I could smell it coming down the walk, before I even came inside the house. Made with oodles of fresh organic veg, a hearty splat of tomato paste, and a few generous glugs of red wine. For the complete and total WIN!

That is all. As you were.

Back to Dr.Who and BSJ attempt #2. (Going well enough that I'm a little nervous I missed something!)

Expect the Unexpected

One morning last week, Mr.Q called me from work. "What are we doing tonight?" he asked.

"Nothing, as far as I know. Why?"

"Want to go on a date with me?"

Well, y'all know how much I like spontaneous date nights, so of course I said yes. "Sounds great! Where are we going?"

"I got free tickets to the Giants hockey game tonight!"

Now. Those of you who know me in real life know I enjoy hockey only slightly more than, say, a good root canal. And those who know Mr.Q know that he enjoys it even less. (So much less, in fact, that we once had an argument about whether our hypothetical kids would be allowed to play hockey. I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that if that's what they wanted, they'd play - and I wouldn't be the only parent getting up for a 5:00 am ice time. So there!)

At any rate, this particular idea for a "date night" was highly unusual, but the arena's only 3 blocks from home. I figured, why not? A great opportunity for people-watching, if nothing else! Also, much giggling ensued over the course of the day, which is never a bad thing.

So we ate a quick dinner when we got home, and headed out into the rainy evening for this strange adventure...

Look! There's a Zamboni on the ice behind us! (I am enough of a Canuck to find Zambonis (Zambonii?) entertaining. Though I can't be the only one that thinks the name sounds like a kind of pasta, can I?)


Of course, I brought my knitting:


There was an ESL group sitting below us, having a grand old time. They tried to get a wave going several times, but it died out after our section. It was more fun than I had expected, truth be told.

Though we did only stay for the first period. And came home to this:


Which is pretty much what they're doing right now. Never a dull moment, Chez Quimby!

Now...off to make Attempt #2 at my first Baby Surprise Jacket...EZ may just make my brain melt, but I can see why she is considered the patron saint of my addiction! I already want to make a dozen of these!

What's a girl to do....

...when she's flying solo on a Friday night; is trying to be sensible with her funds; and she really doesn't want to spend another evening at home watching Dr.Who and knitting?

Why, she goes out to go knitting! The fabulous ladies at our new neighbourhood LYS, Baaad Anna's, hosted a "Yarn Tasting" last night.


No, we did not actually eat the yarn, or even lick it. Though some of it looked awfully tasty! Instead, we ate cheese. Drank wine. Got to play with samples of sexy yarn in all manner of weights and fibre content. There were tiny chocolates, and even place cards....


There was good company, familiar and new. A lot of laughing, much fondling, a little shopping...and did I mention the wine?

(Why is it that Mr.Q's rock & roll adventures usually leave me unscathed...but the knitting is more likely to give me hangovers?)

I wish I'd been able to get more pics, but the batteries died after just two. Anna said she'd have some up on her website soon, though, for a better sense of the delightful chaos. I had a brief chat with her, later in the evening, and I'm really glad she decided to set up shop in this neck of the woods. Not just to feed my addiction (though that would suffice!) But coz she seems genuinely interested in building community as much as running a business, and that's a notion that's near and dear to my heart. It's really why I love knitters as much as I do.

(Though when I woke up this morning and recalled the conversation...I winced a little when I realized I was probably not as coherent as I thought at the time. 3 small glasses of wine in an evening, and I'm a burbling idiot. Ouch! Guess I just can't hold it like I used to in my youth. Which is not a bad thing, per se. Just occasionally embarrassing. And I can't help feeling like I'm betraying my Irish roots...So I made up for it with some Baileys in my coffee this morning.)

Other adventures this morning include wearing a pink flannel nightie, wool socks, and a shawl all at once (I am such a fashion plate!) while pattern-trawling on Ravelry. Washing & blocking hats and scarves for the cooler weather. Toast and hunny. Cuddling with beasties. Considering the pile of dishes on the counter.

And (squee!) finally getting our tickets for John Prine next month. The seats are kind of crap, and OHMYBOB Ticket Monster sucks - they suck big, stinky, prickly porcupine balls - for all the service charges! But...John Prine! It's very thoughtful of him to be in town just a few days before my birthday. Much easier to justify the tickets that way.

Now onto the important business of the day...more coffee? A load of laundry? Those dishes?

Or a nap?

(Guess which one I'm going to choose!)

What do you do with a drunken sailor?

Not that anybody was actually drunk...nor was there any sailing. Or sailors. (But there were boats!) A more accurate title may have been "What do you do with a sleep-deprived wife who desperately wants to get out of the house but is too tired to do much of anything, and really shouldn't be out in public for the safety and well-being of everyone around her?"

But that's a little long, as a title, and it just doesn't have the same ring to it! However, it more accurately sums up the state of affairs Chez Quimby yesterday morning. For some reason - and I have no explanation for it - I could not sleep Friday night. Or sleep in Saturday morning. So I woke up early, groggy, and cranky. However, it was a beautiful day, and I couldn't stand the idea of staying inside. I had the brilliant idea that we should walk up to the neighbourhood and get groceries, and maybe stop for a coffee with our new travel Scrabble set while we were at it.

Mr.Q, observant man that he is, knew I'd make it about halfway to the store before I crashed, and I'd spend the rest of the afternoon in a snit. He suggested I stay home and give him a list. But he's been really busy the last couple of weeks, so the afternoon was our only opportunity for Quality Time this weekend, and I wasn't going to give that up. (Because, you know, hanging out in a busy grocery store with a tired, bitchy spouse is everybody's definition of "Quality Time"!)

So, he did what he does best in this kind of situation: told me (nicely) to be quiet, and do what I'm told. Then he told me to grab my knitting, and a snack, and that we were going for a walk to the wee park at the end of the street. There are benches looking out over the port and Burrard Inlet, and I was going to knit while he read a book, and I was not to argue with him, but I should hurry up and get my shoes on.

I, of course, did what I do best in this kind of situation: I shut up and did what I was told. Because he's usually right. This was no exception.

The view from our bench:


There was indeed knitting:


That, my friends, is my first-ever sock on 2 circs, and I can't believe I resisted for so long! It's not really any faster than DPNs for me, but it's super-easy. And it's my first real-sized toe-up sock, too! In Miss Bab's Wisteria colourway - the colours here are not nearly as vibrant as the real thing, and it's lovely to knit with. (Can't remember the pattern off the top of my head, and I'm too lazy to go find it just now!)

There were boats, coming and going...I love watching them!



Then, worn out from all the excitement, I had a little nap on the bench in the sun for about half an hour. When I woke up, we broke out the Scrabble:


I can't tell you who won, coz some time ago, Mr.Q decided he didn't like playing for points. (By "some time ago" I mean "at some point near the beginning of our honeymoon." I kept beating him.) (There are 2 bingos on the board, one across a triple word score. Those are mine. For the record.)

We were at the park for almost an hour and a half, in the end. It was really the perfect way to spend the afternoon. Then we went home, and I had another nap.

(And slept about 11 hours last night...think I'm finally caught up!)

Big plans afoot...

Mr.Q has been exceptionally busy, musically-speaking, the last couple of weeks, and with only the long weekend as a respite, has a pretty full calendar for much of September and a chunk of October. Including both weekends bookending my birthday. And I guess he was feeling guilty about it, because he decided we should get away for Thanksgiving (which is the second weekend in October, for non-Canuck readers!).

I discovered this when I came into the living room the other day, and found him on the Amtrak website...seems they've re-started train service from Vancouver to Seattle, and Mr.Q has decided that's what we're doing for the next long weekend. Woot! Train ride!

Knowing that my "let's be sensible" muscles are overdeveloped, and being pretty excited at the prospect of a train trip & weekend away, we went downtown today to buy the tickets in person. I made hotel reservations this morning, too. So there's no talking myself out of it.

He has this romantic notion of gazing out the window as we glide through the Cascades, while my needles click softly in the morning light. Or some such thing. Of course, there will be knitting. But only after I have kicked his butt at Scrabble. I have been looking for an excuse to get a travel Scrabble set, and this is totally it. Butt-kicking, I say.

Back to work tomorrow...always a challenge after a long weekend. But it's been a good weekend...spent Saturday afternoon & night with my Sis, shopping & then dinner (Indian food! Nom nom nom!) She made killer French toast for breakfast on Sunday, before driving me home. En route, we made a detour at Home Sense so I could buy a couple much-needed new sheet sets.

Dudes. I buy my sheets at Value Village, or Evil Mart. Or, I used to. Hello, Egyptian cotton! Hello my new BFF, threadcount!

Needless to say, over the next while we will be replacing all our bed linens with Dah Good Sheets. I might even skimp on coffee for a month or two, save my pennies, and splash out on the 1200 threadcount sheets. Just one set. To say I did. Though it might spoil me.

I can't wait to go back to bed!