Out of Yarn
But, really, the dog comes first
In other news …
Jun 20th
1. Furthering my long-held belief that most problems go away if you ignore them long enough: the fridge light fixed itself.
2. A whole lot of people with pointy sticks just got mad.
3. Sam climbed the stairs.
4. But he can’t go down yet.
5. I lost my wallet.
6. Sam found it and put it in a really safe place. (His bed.)
7. This does not bode well for things to come.
8. I am pretty sure that if I could figure out the whole light/white balance equation, there could be an entire photo series on Puppy Yoga.
Color Affection is off the needles. You'd think with all that sleeping I could have out-witted him, huh?
I am Sam.
Jun 17th
Sam, I am.
Are you talking to me?
I’m just 8 weeks old and I weigh 7.5 pounds. I’m an Australian Labradoodle (that’s a lab poodle mix. I’m not sure why I’m “Australian”.)
I was the runt of my litter – my other siblings weigh 15 pounds and are gonna be big dogs. They say I’ll get to be 55 – 75 pounds.
So far, I like the water and Ned and eating and snuggling:
This is way better than that silly old crate ...
I’m still a baby and I just got here and there’s lots of new stuff to see and to do and to taste and Dogs! to Meet! I was so excited I couldn’t nap at all yesterday!
I’m gonna make up for it today.
Six years ago
Jun 15th
Aurora and I found Charlee, wandering down the street all by herself. It was a beautiful spring morning – nice and cool and not humid — a perfect day for a walkabout, if you’re a husky. And she was a beautiful dog – clean and well-groomed, healthy.
Also it was before 6 a.m.
I figured that someone had gotten up, let the dog out into the backyard and some other one had left the gate open, maybe even the night before.
I didn’t know where she belonged, and it was too early to knock, so I hooked her onto a leash and took her with me.
Which was an excellent place to take her – because I was meeting dogs (and humans) and going for a run. In the woods.
So we ran – Charlee and I hooked together by a leash. (I didn’t dare take her somewhere unfamiliar and then lose her.) Charlee thought I should run faster but she was quite charmed by this mass of humans and dogs and treats (?!)
She had a blast.
We returned and I dropped Aurora with a friend while Charlee and I headed to a vet to see if she was micro-chipped. (Nope.) Then Charlee and I wandered around the neighborhood where I found her. She did not seem to know the houses and no one recognized her. /sigh
I was unsure what I was going to do – I did not feel that I could keep both dogs. …Then M said she’d take Charlee.
And so she did.
I don't do this often - it is poorly done and a reallyreally stupid idea, unless you're sitting with the camera in the back seat while someone else is driving. Or stopped at a light. But then she picks up her head and looks at you to complain about the lack of forward motion.
But I have visiting kidnapping rights.
Also – you’d have a better picture, except she rolled in something (dead dear) really stinky and I after I clean her up (omg!) she does need to go home.
And I’m really happy that this dog (who can open jars and pull tab cans and rolls in dead dear) wandered into my life.
Two Iceland Travel Tidbits for Americans
Jun 10th
This is a puffin running away from us. I have 22 frames of him (her?) trying to get airborn.
This is the little guy doing a fly by. I hear they each have unique designs on their beaks; like fingerprints.
1. Know your PIN number for your credit/debit card.
If you are driving, you’ll need gas. Gas stations now require a pin number. All of them. Everywhere in Iceland. (Someone told us it was new this year.) Shell stations wouldn’t take our cards but the N-1 stations were accommodating. (This kind of assumes you won’t be using cash. (I never use cash. I always use my credit card. I do not know my pin.) But if you were using cash, presumably you’d need your pin to get cash out of an ATM.)
The only time I needed a PIN was for gas pumps. (And I only needed to sign my credit slip when outside of Reykjavik. No one asked me for an ID – except the guy renting us the car.)
This whale was just hanging out, eating. No hurry, no stress, no interest in us whatsoever. Just eating. Given that he (she?) came up and dove about 20 times and I have about 47 gig of pix, you'd think I'd capture more of the ginormous beast (humpback).
2. Phones* – when you turn on your phone, on the plane, on the runway it will pop up with a message about Iceland call charges and data charges. Promptly turn off your cell data use. (iPhone instructions here.)
Cell data charges result from all those automagic things your smart phone does. I’ve heard tales of $1000 phone bills. Use your Wi Fi.
In Reykjavik, it seemed that every place except hotels had free Wi Fi. Outside of the capital, Wi Fi was a little harder to find, but not much. (Also – outside of the capital, all our hotels had Wi Fi.)
Whale footprint. This is the mark whales leave in the water when they dive. And this is what most of my whale pictures look like.
* A note on US federal gov’t issue phones: Ask your agency. Some will work, some won’t. Contracts differ. ASK your IT department. Also, “Iceland” is not “Europe”; be specific.
A note on the Color Addiction: I’m so glad I frogged. I’m three-quarters re-knit (by ridge count. Each row is longer than the next …) (In two days. That says I spent a week thinking about it in Iceland. Counting stitches. Stretching it out. Plotting. Planning. Refiguring. … /sob.)
I blame the scenery
Jun 8th
It started off easily enough and progressed quickly:
Color Affection - all but the last few border rows are completed. But like any shawl project, it looks rather shapeless all bunched up.
I casted on at home, just before leaving for the airport. I knitted for two weeks while touring around Iceland. I almost finished on the plane on the way home. (I did not knit in the car on the way home from the airport: it was dark. I had not seen “dark” for two weeks. Lack of sun seriously cuts into one’s knitting time.)
I had some doubts (Is “three stitches after the previous short row wrap, the wrap plus 3 stitches or the wrap plus 2 stitches?” (And in either case, why on earth did I knit 3 stitches after the previous end of row?) Was I supposed to have enough short rows to use up all the stitches? What was the shape of this thing? How many stripes were there?) But I didn’t have a plan B, so I kept knitting.
I know I made some mistakes and I kept knitting.
I arrived home a week ago (and then there was a tornado.) And today, I put it on a life line and spread it out to see what was happening:
And it is not going to block out well.
I know it doesn’t look tooo bad – but trust me, it was wonky shaped. And I would have been annoyed every time I saw it.
And I totally blame this view for my lapse in counting:
Myvatn
and this view for my failure to read directions
The little lambs totally wagged their tails when nursing.
and this view for ignoring the problem and continueing to knit
Can't you just see a lopapeysa in there?
and this view for squelching any doubts about shaping
I did not expect to see reindeer. I think they came down from the mountains because of the wind storm/dust.
Seriously – check out the larger view:
And now there is this view:
/sigh
