an ent knits

weekend highlights

After having a grand time on Thursday evening knitting at Anj's (and staying out way too late), I stayed out late again on Friday. I wound up working too late to go home and nap before my evening plans, so I went out to a bar in Northern Liberties* with a couple of my labmates. Upon finishing my dinner, I walked over to the Electric Factory to see the Decemberists.

The show was good. It was the Decemberists, after all, and they played The Mariner's Revenge Song, complete with cardboard whale eating the lead singer:

The overall experience, however, was not so great. I'd seen the Decemberists twice before, in much smaller and somewhat smaller venues, and I really prefer being able to clearly see the face of the singer. Even if it does come with more crowding and more smoke. (I could also do without the [need for the] projection screens farther back and on the side wall.) The thing that really upset me, though, even more than being late enough that I missed half of the first song and didn't meet up with my friends until after the show, was the security.

Okay, I like the idea that nobody with a gun is going to get into the concert. Some sort of security maybe isn't such a bad plan at a venue that size. But you might want to think twice about a plan that involves confiscating umbrellas on a rainy evening. Also, ballpoint pens? Since when are ballpoint pens a security risk? But the real problem? What the hell do you think I was planning on doing with my bamboo circular knitting needle? It's not as pointy as a pen, it's bamboo and thus breakable, the cable isn't strong enough to strangle someone (I'm assuming that, anyway; it's not as though I've tried), and it was IN my KNITTING! And, well, if you're going to look in my bag and make me take my bamboo circ out of my project, why the hell do you not care if I have my pocketknife in my jeans pocket? I have to say I'm glad they didn't make me leave my micra in their cardboard box (they let me keep my umbrella, too, since there hadn't been a fuss over it and it fits in my bag), and I did get my needle back. On the other hand, it got wet enough during the show that I need to refinish it, and the fact that it was outside also meant I couldn't knit during the concert. So I was standing on the balcony, without the friends I was expecting to be hanging out with, fidgeting instead of knitting.

Oh, well. Saturday definitely compensated for the unexpected alone-time, though, since I spent the entire day making jams and bread with Anj and Parker. It was so very nice to play with bread dough again... This wonderfully cool and rainy weather is making me want to make lots of things like soup and biscuits and roasted veggies.

Anyway, we were mightily productive, but I took a few minutes to pull out my camera to try to capture the lovely colors in a more permanent, less edible fashion. Only one of my pictures came out satisfactorily, but I rather like it.

lemon marmalade

Sunday's only trip outside was for this month's oh-so-thrilling co-op shift of bagging dry goods, plus some housework. Well past time, and I'm off to do some more now.

*Should you happen to go to Standard Tap, I recommend the chick pea and sprout sandwich. It was quite tasty.

illinoise-hearing socks

Last night, I left work "early" (6:45) to meet SuperTarzan at the TLA for the Sufjan Stevens concert. It was probably just as well that we wound up being late, as we still got in and found a spot to stand before the opening act started. I was impressed that I actually liked the opening singer, whose name is Denison Whitmer; it was partly that the songs were good and partly that I could understand nearly all of the words. Yeah, enunciation! (I think a good chunk of my pickiness about enunciation stems from the fact that I have to wear earplugs to concerts in order to not be in pain after about five minutes.) Anyway, Sufjan Stevens and the Illinoisemakers were great, just as I'd hoped. The only downside was that it was standing room and their music isn't really dance-y enough to do much more than stand.

For Cyn, here's a (sadly blurry) picture:

Alas, my camera doesn't have a setting for "I don't care how dark it is, but it shouldn't be blurry". Next time...

Meanwhile, much to the amusement of SuperTarzan (and probably the confusion of a few of the other patrons and quite likely also the waitresses), I pulled out my knitting as soon as the music started. I don't have a shot of the sock from right before the concert, but here's what I've got now.

I still have a few inches of ribbing to go, but I'm hoping to finish these in the next month or so. Hey, maybe I can wear them for my birthday!

In other sock-related news, it's finally been cooling off here. I was so happy to be able to wear long sleeves outside this evening, while I walked home.

afternoon and evening out

I took a couple of hours off yesterday afternoon to go downtown and run some errands. It's been beautiful this week (if all of summer were like this, I'd like summer), so it was great to get outside for a while. My first stop (and, really, the only purchase worth a photo) was on Fabric Row, where I was intending to buy some quilting cotton for a dpn case. None of the cottons called out to me, so I wound up with this:

dupioni silk, with different-colored warp and weft. mmmm...

When I got back to lab, I found out that a few other people were planning to go to a free concert of bluegrassy music in Rittenhouse Square and decided to join them. It turned out to not really be bluegrass, but it was okay folk-rock. At least, if one of the singers had cut out the screaming (kinda like he'd really wanted to be in a metal band) and the occasionally singing flat. Dissonance that doesn't sound intentional just isn't fun to listen to. But, hey, it was free. And a lovely evening to hang out in the park with friendly coworkers.

cement columns are not only good seats but also good tripods

And here we have a bonus cat picture, because Mel is cute.

did I hear a bird outside the window?

a nicely eventful weekend

I had a very nice weekend. Since I had kitten-playing-with guests both days, I think Mel appreciated it, too. And, most exciting, I actually did some knitting. Anju convinced me that the free TMBG concert at Penn's Landing wouldn't just be a kids' concert, so I met up with her and Tim at the entrance. (I also saw several people from work, which amused me.)

Anyway, I knitted about a third of a repeat of the Flower Basket Shawl on the trolley on the way there. Since I don't have a new picture, I'll just ask you to imagine a four-repeat FBS in variegated grey. (Add to the list of "ways in which Naomi is weird": I see FBS on knitting blogs, and I have to correct myself from "fetal bovine serum")

During the concert, of course, I couldn't concentrate enough to knit lace, so I switched to the second wildfoote sock, which grew by about half an inch. Again, no new picture, but I'm sure you can imagine a two-inch toe-hat in red variegated yarn. (Who, me? Variegated yarn in everything? I don't know what you're talking about.)

After the concert, we had dinner at Kabul, a nearby Afghan restaurant about which I had heard good things. The food was excellent, if a smidgen pricier than my usual haunts (read: entrees for more than $10), and I particularly liked the lamb with eggplant and the curried pumpkin. Anyone know of good recipes for Afghan-style pumpkin curries?

Then, on Sunday, Anj and Sue came over for dinner and playing with Mel. They brought a blueberry clafouti, which was both delicious and part of my decision to use my blueberries in chocolate cake. It is also quite likely that I will try a pear clafouti when there are pears at the farmers' market.

Friends + cooking + fibercrafting + music = happy Naomi

edit: oh, yeah, and the concert was quite good, as I'd expect from them

summer vacation, part 2: maine

The second bit of my summer vacation was a visit to Chantal and Jeremy. I was all excited when I saw that the most direct route from my parents' house to Chantal and Jeremy's included a long stretch of US2, because I like driving on two-lane highways. What I hadn't recalled was that rte. 2 has lots of towns and town traffic, and I hadn't thought about the effects of road work on two-lane roads. So it was a nice drive, but not as nice as I'd hoped.

My first conscious thoughts about Maine: Maine is huge (you know, compared to the ~2h to cross Vermont, and the seemingly ~30' to cross northern New Hampshire; it's big for New England). And it's gorgeous. Even during the stops for road work, where there was only one lane for a while and the other direction was moving, the scenery off the road was nice enough to distract me.

Later on: You know, there are an awful lot of conifers in Maine. There are still birches and, um, other deciduous trees that aren't as easily recognizable/some of my favorite trees/as memorable, but there's a higher percentage of conifers than in the Burlington area. Also, that's a lot of lupines along the sides of the roads. Mmm, lupines. Seeing them was especially nice since I'd found my old copy of Miss Rumphius while sorting through books at my parents' house.

So, after a few more hours of driving through Maine, and after learning that Mainers drive really, really fast, I made it to Machias and Chantal's house.

On Wednesday, Jeremy went off to work for a while and Chantal and I slept in and then went to beaches at Roque Bluffs and Jonesport/Beals Island. I don't have any pictures of Roque Bluffs yet, since I took those with my real (film) camera and have yet to develop them. Here are a few pictures from the Jonesport area:

periwinkles at the dock

there are roses along lots and lots of beaches, and they smell lovely

one of the amusing parts of taking pictures out the car window

Later, after a bit of a nap, the three of us drove up to Lubec for a free concert of Baroque music. I was disappointed that the woman who was supposed to have been playing baroque flute wasn't there, but harpsichord and viola da gamba are also quite nice. The performance was good, and they gave some nice bits of historical background information. I knew some of it already, but more context is always nice. (I sometimes miss having people discuss music history at the dinner table.) And, hey, the concert was a great place to knit on the toe of my sock, since I couldn't see the performers anyway.

Thursday also started slowly, as is appropriate for vacation. Once we'd gotten moving, we went to Chantal and Jeremy's favorite local diner. The cook called in from the kitchen area that she had fresh strawberries (it was really just strawberry season! in July!), so I had strawberry crepes. Mmmm, strawberries. In the theme of berries, since Maine is such a blueberry-ish place, there's a store near Machias that's shaped like a giant blueberry:

me and Chantal in front of the blueberry

After visiting the blueberry, we went on something of a yarn crawl. We started with a store called Shirley's, which has lots and lots of stuff other than yarn; I bought a spool of dark purple copper wire for knitting. Then, after running some errands in Ellsworth, we set out to try to find Tess's Yarns. Note the word "try". We had a general idea of where there'd been signs from the road. Before we got to where they'd been seen, we found signs for "Shaw's Place, Handknits", so we headed over that way to investigate. No yarn for sale, but some interesting antiques (including a blue parasol covered in black lace that I would've liked for a costume) and some cute kid clothing, and the owner was a very friendly elderly woman who tried to give us directions to Tess's. Again, the operative word is "tried"--she knows the way, but as a route, not to give directions. We drove around a bit, and we found another sign (a couple of miles off the main road) that said "yarn that way", but no luck.

We went back to the house to cook some dinner and collect Hartley (the cocker spaniel), and then we went out to another beach.

Chantal and Hartley at Jasper Beach

I blame the poor picture quality on the swarms of mosquitoes and black flies

So, Maine was great. I want weather like that in July! Lows in the 50's and highs in the 60's-70's! (Um, something like 10-20ºC.) But, really, blanket weather without air conditioning! And ocean! Okay, that's probably enough exclamation points for one paragraph, but I can totally see myself living in Maine sometime. Although I'd probably prefer someplace a smidgen less remote than Machias for anything other than an escape.

I just realized that I hadn't set the post status to draft when I saved this halfway through. Sorry if you saw a half-written post and got confused...

one full weekend

I had a wonderful weekend.

It started on Thursday, when I went contra dancing in Glenside. I hadn't been dancing since January, and it was well past time. It was great fun, despite how sweaty I got, and it was really nice to see the people in the band with whom I went to college. (The one downside was that they're both doing really exciting things next year, going to Europe for music, and it made me feel kind of boring. I mean, what do I have to talk about? I have labwork, which is hard to explain to non-biologists, and knitting, which tends to glaze the eyes of non-knitters, and living-in-Philadelphia, which is just intrinsically less exciting than touring Europe with a choir and studying voice in London or getting a fellowship to study accordion in northern Europe. I like my life, though, so things are good.)

Then, on Friday, rather than my usual retreat to my apartment for some quiet, I went to Vientiane Café for dinner with Anju, who was in from the 'burbs for the day, and Dan. After dinner, we went to a Bach concert put on by Chloe's choir and the Philadelphia Baroque Players. Aside from my getting us lost on the way there because I'd misremembered the directions (I need to stop doing that, at least when there are other people around; trusting that I'll be able to figure something out works better when I'm alone), it was great. It'd been way, way too long since I'd heard live baroque music. (It's quite possible that I hadn't been to a baroque concert since college, which would make that three years.) It also provided me with time to knit the heel on my sock.

Because I am crazy, I stayed up late after I got home because I wanted to cast on for klarabrite. It wouldn't've been quite as bad if I'd been able to cast on/knit without interruption, but Mel decided that the space behind the corner bookshelf was a perfect hiding place, especially because the stereo cords made such good chew toys. The only thing that would distract him was the laser pointer, so, every couple of minutes, I'd put down the knitting and lure the kitten away from the stereo.

On Saturday morning, I was (briefly) virtuous--I went to work for about an hour. On the way home, Angela (who'd also been in lab) and I stopped at the flea market that was being held in the park across the street from my apartment. There was some junk, some nice but expensive stuff, and a couple of booths of interesting-and-reasonably-priced things. I bought this mask for my dad for Fathers' Day:

It's a representation of Hanuman, and I think it'll go nicely with the rest of my dad's mask collection. (Yes, my (small) mask collection is a sign that I'm following the tradition started by my grandmother, who actually made two of my four masks.)

Saturday evening was spent happily at a bar called the Black Sheep with Stephanie, Anj, Juno, Amy and Ann, whose blog addresses I don't know, and a few other people whose names I didn't quite catch. (Remind me, and I'll fix this.) It was a good thing we were almost the only people on the second floor--we got a bit loud. As usual, no people pics from me, but Anj has a couple up here. During that time, I knit maybe three quarters of an inch of sock cuff.

I spent Sunday morning lazing around (and learning first-hand why my dad precooks the potatoes for home fries), and then I wandered off to Stephanie's official book tour event thingy. It didn't really seem like a reading, and it wasn't just a signing, and it was a lot more conversational than a talk, so I think I'll continue to call it an event thingy. Anyway, the windows at the synogogue where we started were lovely--I'll have to go back sometime when they're lit from inside--and I managed to hang out at Rosie's for over an hour and not buy anything. (Before you think too highly of my self-control: I've got a frequent buyer card discount to use, so I'm going to go back when it's less crowded and get a couple of books and some lantern moon dpns. And maybe a couple of Skacel bamboo circs, since they look pointier than clovers or plymouths. And I'm planning to check out Loop again, now that it's past MDSW.) Also, because it was a knitting event thingy, I kept working on my sock and klarabrite. Here's what they look like now:

I'm doing a diagonal rib for the edging. I'll *make* it go with the rest of the sweater.

Just a few more inches!

When Anj, Sue, and I were all ready to leave Rosie's, I decided to continue wandering with friends instead of going back to work. We looked around the art fair in Rittenhouse Square for a while; there was a lot of mediocre or really not my taste stuff, but also some really lovely artwork. Of course, the only way I can afford original artwork these days is to have the artist like me enough to give me art as holiday/birthday presents. (This works pretty well, as I have half a dozen friends & relatives who are highly talented [non-fiber]artists, but it does mean that there are limits to what I've got.) And then we got Capogiro gelato. Mmmmmmm..... Bitter chocolate and very minty mint, made so that the egg didn't set off my sensitivity/allergy (unlike some more commercial types, which do). Yum.

what we were gazing at while we ate our gelato

The most exciting bit of the evening (hanging out with friends, although fun, should not be "exciting"; it should be comfortable) was getting to try out Anj's spinning wheel. There are more things to keep track of with a wheel than there are with a drop spindle, but it's not really that different. Maybe (if I have money left after buying a car and a digital SLR) I'll get myself a wheel when I graduate.

Sorry, Chantal, I've spun a bit on a wheel already. I'm still looking forward to playing with yours!

this week, in summary

Monday: Finish immunostaining and start imaging. Go to grad student association meeting and drag Michelle home to meet Mel.

Tuesday: More imaging. Peter Baas seminar on microtubules in axons (mostly transport, some severing)--very exciting. Spend lunch talking about science (rather unusual). Finish imaging. Go home and collapse.

Wednesday: Image processing, all day. Leave early (6:30) to meet Cyn for dinner and the Mountain Goats show. Go home and collapse.

Thursday: Oversleep. Go to work, intending to set up an experiment. Discover that there are no coverslips left. Remedy that situation and read half a paper. Leave really early (3:00) to meet Chloe and Rose (yay, Rose!) for an afternoon of wandering around town. Meet up with Cyn and Amy for the Decemberists show. Go home and collapse.

Friday: Go to work, read a paper and a half. Wash some fish embryos for Ang. Go to a two-hour TA meeting (the last one!). Go to happy hour with some other TAs. Feel much tipsier than normal for the same amount of alcohol. Come home and collapse. Try to play with the kitten.

Some more details:
The Mountain Goats show was great. It was kind of crowded and hard to see, but John Darnielle is a very good songwriter who enunciates really well. The solo cellist who played first was pretty good. (I much preferred the more melodic of the pieces he played, and I could've done without the weird-noise bits.) Shearwater, the second act, was pretty typical for an opening band. Not bad, but I couldn't tell you what any of the lyrics were (enunciate, people!), and not musically exciting. The banjo was a nice touch, and the ivory-billed woodpecker drawn on it was cool (as was the banter about the ivory-billed woodpecker--not what I'd expect to hear at an indie show), but not enough to make me like them.

We stopped by Loop, the new yarn store at 19th and South, yesterday afternoon. They have a lot of nice stuff, including several lines that Rosie's and Sophie's don't carry (Blue Sky Alpaca, Frog Tree, something that's like Manos but is softer, lots more Lorna's Laces). I would totally have bought stuff if not for Maryland Sheep and Wool tomorrow. Oh, and I saw Christy at Loop, which was pleasantly random.

The Decemberists show was also great. It seemed less....emotional? than the Mountain Goats show, but it was much dancier. I was dancing a bit, but Cyn and Amy were obviously having a grand time. (Me, I like contra and English dance because someone's telling me what to do.) Standing on the balcony was a very good move, since there was actually room to dance.

I have the feeling there was something else I was going to say, but I need to gather up my things for MDSW (thereby disturbing Mel, who's asleep between my ankles and my computer) and crash.