Fish & Fireworks

Heather, Matt & I went to the harbor early yesterday and hung out all day. A huckleberry ice cream waffle cone couldn't quite beat the heat, so we took a refreshing ferry ride to a Bainbridge Island casino, where we each bet $1 at the nickel slots. We renewed our Aquarium membership and went to their July 4th party: Communion with my otter friends, a behind the scenes tour, and a great view of the fireworks from their deck. Another terrific day!

"It was GREAT until I almost died!"

I have links now! These are a few of the sites I peek at regularly. More to come soon.

Oil's well that ends well.

The oil that came with my spinning wheel ran out. I had to use a lot, because she always started squeaking after each hour of yarn creation. Matt talked me into using Triflon, a firearm oil that contains Teflon. HOLY COW is that wheel smooth and silent now! Spinners, pick some up at your local gun shop.

While we're on the topic, avocado oil is fantastic for massage and other personal uses. Like other oils, it's not compatible with latex, but it leaves your skin feeling wonderful and even works under water. Find it in the salad dressing / olive oil section of your high-end gourmet grocery stores.

Enjoy! :)

2006 Black Sheep Gathering = Girl Heaven

For you non-fiberaddicts, the Black Sheep Gathering is an annual festival in Eugene, OR for farmers (with goats, rabbits, alpacas, and of course sheep), people who turn raw fleeces into carded roving, dyers, spinners, weavers, knitters, and all the folks who sell our toys (wheels, looms, etc). There are tons of animals and vendors, and it's downright easy to find something you can't live without at every single table.

This year I drove Wendolene (living up to her yarn-shop proprietess namesake) and filled her with eager fiber artists Holly, AJ, Joy, and Amy. Amanda and Alex had to back out at the last minute, which was fortunate since we filled every cubic centimeter with our purchases! Pictured are my finds: The only sheep wool I got was 6 oz of Wensleydale in dark mallard green, brown and a tremendous glowing copper. It seemed to be the year for mohair: Those are the curly locks, and they come from Angora goats. I bought silver-gray, cobalt blue, and a watery mix of blue and green that actually matches the other blue beautifully. The seller tossed in some of that deep scarlet and the buff colored roving (that's what mohair looks like when carded). I'll dye the buff and maybe the silver. The black is teenage alpaca and is SOOOOOO soft. I also got a little white silk. Overall, a nice mix of textures and colors to play with. I'm expecting some white bunny Angora from an Internet friend, so I have to figure out what fibers I want to pair up before I start dyeing.

AJ, being a smart crocheter, chose some roving that I'll spin for her. It's a win-win: She gets cheap yarn and I get to spin more without having to pay for it. She selected a cherry mohair and black merino that I'll blend into a varigated blood red two-ply. Add all this to the spinning I'll be doing for Heather, and you've got a very happy Needlegirl. I'm not even jealous of the portable wheel Holly bought. Okay, I am. But at least I didn't buy that gray Angora bunny boy with the black face and ears. He was adorable, and only $20. I am the queen of willpower!

Other highlights of the trip: Visiting Weaving Works in Seattle with Amanda. Harvesting lavender with Holly (grown in her back yard). Giggling at the Wallace & Gromit movies yet again, and enjoying my friends' first exposure to them. Getting a foot rub from AJ. Having a cold shower after a blistering drive through record-setting temps ... with the heater on to keep the old diesel cool. Holly gleefully shouting "I've got crabs!" Best: Having my dream car filled with girlfriends whooping and laughing on the way to Spinner Heaven. I love my life!

"You keep doing what you're doing - I'll get the firecrackers!"

This is Heather. Doesn't she have a wonderful smile?

A few of my favorite things:

Cool stuff you should know about for your mind, body, and soul (plus a local bonus):

MIND: Sudoku is a logic game with no math or guessing, just analyzing and eliminating. You can find unlimited free games (and the extremely short rules) at websudoku.com. Very fun, but I warn you - also very addictive. They are difficult at first but as you start to figure out the strategy they go much faster.

BODY: Last week I mentioned Keens and Merrills. I'm famous for being a cheapskate, but good shoes - like a good bed - are worth every penny. I'm not kidding about trying them out. They make Birks seem like Keds, both ergonomically and aesthetically.

SOUL: For a little entertainment, rent Carnivale. It was a short lived (2 seasons) HBO series about some freaky and fabulous carneys traveling the country in 1934. It's a magical whirlwind with great sets and amazing people who evolve as the show spins out. Available on Netflix, among other places. NOT for kids!

Lagniappe: Check out Superior Automotive, 17 1/2 102nd Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98004. (425) 454-5028
These guys are real, honest-to-goodness old-fashioned mechanics. They can figure out anything. They're honest. They're cheap. Thery're fast. We are oh-so-glad we found them!

Not all who wander are lost...

Matt & I have been taking advantage his time off, and my break between tests, to explore the magnificence that is Washington State. On Saturday we took part in an antique British car run. Unfortunately most of the cars who came were neither antique nor British, but there was a lovely '59 Jag Mark IX (ahead of Wallace in the pic - I'm shooting while driving Wendolene) and a few old MGs and Triumphs. The route was fantastic: Lots of well-maintained roads through woods and beautiful farmlands. On Sunday we drove up to Snoqualmie Falls and took a train ride. Yesterday we intended to see the Sequoias at the Olympic National Park, but got diverted and wound up on the Dungeness Spit at Sequim instead. The pic of Seattle was taken from the ferry coming back home.

I'm very happy with the pics I took (far more than I can post here) and the best will be added to the next picture CD.

Wind Beneath my Wings AKA The Perfect Day

Some Chemistry and Organic Chem, then off to the city for some real fun! First we stopped at REI, where I found a pair of Keens on clearance. Haven't tried these yet? Along with Merrells, they are my prescription for happy feet.

Debbie, Steve, Matt and I hired a seaplane for an airtour of Seattle. When the pilot found out I used to fly, he let me take the yoke for about 10-15 minutes. It was INCREDIBLE! I've been really missing flying recently - even dreaming about it - so I was doing serious binkies heading TO the plane, let alone afterwards! We had great visibility and just a few gusts. Utterly perfect! Steve took the pics.

Afterwards we had a stupendous seafood dinner at Chandler's. Like I said: Perfect! This is so cool - with my friends coming to see me, I feel like I've been on vacation, and I haven't even missed any school! :)

It's AAAAALIIIIVE!!!

WOW do I feel GREAT!!! I've been working out hard again, and it's difficult to express just how different I am. Instead of tired, depressed, and weighted down by a giant Fat Suit, I am springing all over the place. I know I still look the same (okay, I'm obviously losing a little - my watch bracelet is looser) but I FEEL like I'm back in my Personal Trainer body. I feel energized, integrated... lithe and light.

I started back in the gym a few weeks ago, just doing the usual treadmill and weights, but I was sick of it and unmotivated. I obviously wasn't pushing myself enough.... until last Monday when my buddy Steve came to visit. He's been overseas for a few years and I've missed him tremendously, so our week-long visit has been great. Steve has always been extremely athletic (rock climbing, martial arts, etc.) but now he's gotten into this Crossfit (you guessed it, crossfit.com) thing and he's really loving it. I am too! The workouts are different every day, so you don't get bored. The paradigm is completely unlike my old bodybuilding routine: It's built around functional fitness and is designed to generate core strength with multi-joint movements.

Boy, do my quads hurt! :) Woo-HOOO!!

PS - Act fast, girls, he won't be single long now that he's back in the country. It's hard to find such a brilliant, funny, sexy sweetheart of a guy!

update

My vertigo is mostly gone but zings me once in a while. More troublesome: Matt's been having some short-term memory problems and is back on medical leave. We are going to do a sleep study and are investigating some other causes. Anyone want to buy a really cute car?

Austintatious! It's a boy!

The A30 baby has arrived! His name is Feathers McGraw, in keeping with the Wallace & Gromit theme of our other Austins. Generally he looks very good for a 1955 - an excellent project car! The paint is of course tired, but the rust is confined to a few small areas and the engine sounds just fine. We'll be shopping on eBay for chrome and a water pump... getting all the little bits and pieces as we can find them cheaply. :) Alan & Doug at Superior Automotive are having fun playing and now Alan wants an A30 van for himself! Tons of detail pics here for the mechanically inclined: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/barbelle1/my_photos

You spin me right round, baby!

In early April I started spinning some amazing fuschia/ red /purple / pink / coral roving, while Thoth romanced the other end. :) Then the room started spinning. I had three weeks of fairly intense vertigo. After four doctor appointments, the diagnosis is (probably viral) damage to one of my inner ear canals. The left and right ear are supposed to work together, so if one is not quite up to snuff the resulting message to the brain is slightly scrambled... thus the perceived distortion. It was an interesting process and opened up a whole new area of medicine to me that I didn't know about before. The diagnostics were fascinating. Infrared goggles, moving lights, hot and cold water in my ears, the whole deal! The good news: The brain is plastic enough to compensate quickly. I'm already feeling normal again, but I have some therapy exercises to reinforce the relearning. Sweet!

Once the walls starting holding still, I was able to tolerate the spinning wheel again. To maintain the color separation as much as possible, I did a Navaho ply. Fig seems to approve. I've got about 540 yds - not even close to enough for the sweater I had hoped for. Any project ideas, people? I think it'll be about 4 st/inch. As always, click to enlarge.

Pre-Easter Basketcases (The Case of the Missing Tulips)

The kids came to visit (along with our friends Chip and Cathy, who sadly were not photo-documented) and we had a pre-Easter romp. We took the scenic - Ferry to Whitby -Deception Pass route to the Skagit Tulip Festival, which was surprisingly bereft of tulips. Homemade ice cream eased our pain. Back at home, we Kool-Aid dyed and felted my pre-knit Easter baskets, then finished them off with a little needlefelting. Maddie's is a refreshing minty color, judiciously adorned with hearts and stars. Gillie's only half-felted, thanks to Daddy taking a bath and hogging all the hot water, so she wound up with a lovely spring green purse. It has subtle stripes, due to mixing 2 yarns, and she designed the "bunny sniffing flower" motif - so at last we did end up with some tulip-y joy. Additional purple and pink knit rabbits were hopping around, but they evaded the photographer. Toss in a game of Life (Spongebob Edition, naturally!) and you've got a great weekend!
For those of you asked: The girls are straight from their morning showers, thus the wet hair.

Miss Walkies, a Lurking CoonCow, and Peachy Sweetness

Debbie is our fantastic friend from Phoenix. Fig waited so long for some prey to wander by that he fell asleep. Skwatch (aka Peach) showers the people he loves with love. Blackberry kindly shares her blanket with pretty much everyone.

Simply a great pic!

Click to enlarge. :)

Wallace & Wendolene expecting!

We've been parking them next to each other in the garage, and completely forgot to spay/neuter. They've been taking some lessons from Blackberry and now Wendolene is preggers! Feathers McGraw is a possible name, depending on the gender. Gestation and delivery will take a while but here's the initial ultrasound:

Weird science: Surgeon wasps and zombie roaches

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/03/wasp_performs_roachb.html

Garnets and Godiva!

The bun in this photo isn't a friend of mine, I just love the dino-rabbit romance.

Happy Love Day to everyone! My amazing sweetie (who's doing VERY well, thanks) surprised me with some garnet jewelry and a small box of heaven. He also got me highlighters and folders for my schoolwork. *laugh* His prezzies are a dot monster (like a sock monkey only way better) and a Scottish military hat badge from 1900. Sushi tonight!

Good news: My thesis was accepted - As soon as the paperwork goes through I'll officially be a "Master."
Bad news: The things-breaking-trend wasn't quite over. Matt's trusty old Mac finally went belly-up. Ai yai yai.
More good news: Blackberry seems to be over the worst of her digestive issues. We are easing her back into fresh greens now. No more huge black blobby poops. The upside to all the handling (forced medication) is that she's discovered the benefits of physical contact. She now sits next to us on the couch and demands petting all day long. She's nearly a snugglebun. :)

Wallace & Wendolene: Washed & Waxed

Running errands in a London Taxi really puts a smile on our faces, and driving convoy with another Taxi turns an awful lot of heads! After getting them both all glossy and happy, we did glamour shots under the old wooden train bridge. Aren't they lovely?

Family, Friends, & Food

One great thing about Matt being on medical leave is that we get to spend more time with the people we love. We had Dim Sum with Holly, Amanda, Chris, and Rachel (then all packed into the back of the cab!), and then the girls came to visit. Maddie and Gillie are more amazing every day. We had an awesome time and can't wait for the next visit.

Teeny amazing critters - TARDIGRADES!

How did I not hear about these little guys before?

"Water Bears" belong to a lesser known phylum of invertebrate animals, the Tardigrada. They are similar to arthropods, which include crustaceans and insects.

Tardigrades are supertiny critters, typically 0.3 to 0.5 mm (For you non-scientists, a millimeter is about the thickness of a dime). They need water, but if the environment is too dry they just go into hibernation…. For up to TEN YEARS! They can also survive staggering amounts of radiation (5700 grays, while five grays would be fatal to a human). Oh, and they can survive being heated for a few minutes to 151 °C or being chilled for days at -272.8 °C (almost absolute zero). How sweet is that?

They have 4 pairs of legs with claws and five body-segments. They move like little bears, with a slow lumbering gait. The first link below has a short video. Tardigrades are found all over the world, including salt and freshwater environments, in humid rain forests and dry deserts, in low canyons and high altitude mountain-tops. Tardigrades are aquatic organisms and need to be in water to eat, breath, reproduce, and move. They are commonly found in the interstitial (water between leaves) environment of moss and lichen. Some tardigrades are carnivores, others are herbivores or omnivores. They feed on each other, as well as mites, aphids, nematodes, and other microscopic organisms. These microscopic creatures play an important role in the cycling of nutrients. And they’re really really cute.

More reading:

http://www.tardigrades.com/
http://www.iwu.edu/~tardisdp/tardigrade_facts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

Want to help pay my tuition while wearing coolness? http://www.cafepress.com/tardigrades

YEAH!!!!

Great news: Matt went to see his cardiologist today and his ejection fraction has returned to normal. "One for the record books," the doc said. We had not expected it to be so good for weeks, perhaps months.

He still has a few months of recovery - he still has chest pain with exertion and gets tired very easily - but this means his long-term prognosis is excellent. Barring a relapse, the illness will have no impact on his longevity. That means I get to keep him for the next 80 years or so, just as I planned all along. *BIG GRIN*

Many heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed their prayers, distance healing, and movies to keep him on the couch! We are thrilled and grateful to have such a terrific community of friends and family.

Oh - and the rabbit? Blackberry is on antibiotics for the bad bugs, and probiotics for the good ones. Hopefully the bunny butt biohazard will clear up rapidly as well. :)

Things that have broken in the past few weeks:

All three cars: Wallace (various electrical problems) and the Jetta (melted fuseboard & dead battery) required professional assistance. Matt fixed Wendolene's electrical spazz early last week. Do you see a trend here?

Computer power cord. NOT the bunny's fault, for once!

Matt's iPod: Disc crashed and burned. Total scrap.

Matt's heart, for Bob's sake. It'll be months until he's right.

Peachey's blindness is becoming more apparent. We had though it was just one eye, but his laser-dot chasing behavior makes it clear that he's missing a chunk in the other side's visual field, too. He's a perfectly happy housecat, though, so it's not a big deal.

The bunny's butt. Trust me, you don't want the details.

*sigh*

It's still a great life... but I hope that's it for now. I really don't want any more disasters. Thank you to everyone for your copious support!

Update!

Matt is doing so well - his enzymes and troponin are finally dropping - they are releasing him today! The ID doc and cardiologist were very pleased and surprised to let him go so early. I am ever so grateful... WOW - that call for healing Qi really worked! Keep it up - we still have a few months of recovery ahead.

Matt's got myocarditis. No funny headline here.

Matt has contracted viral myocarditis, probably from a patient. That means a virus has infected his heart. He will be in the hospital for a few days at least, then he will have at least 90 days off work to recover. We won't know for a long while if there is any permanent damage, but the odds are very good. He's young, healthy, fit, a non-smoker, non-drug user, non-drinker, and he's got ridiculously resiliant genes. The only scary signs so far are that his ejection fraction is only 45% and his troponin levels keep rising. He's getting the very best medical care (I am SO GRATEFUL we live here and not in some tiny 3rd world country - I could have lost him!!). All we can do is wait and see. Your prayers / magic / healing Qi are all appreciated. Please check back for updates.

I really really really love this man.

Fig needed some Stuff to call his own.

Complete with jingle bell and stuffed with a plastic bag to make an intriging crunchy sound!

Wallace & Wendolene & Christmas Stockings

Matt loved my Wendolene so much that we had to accelerate our plans to acquire our second London Taxi - Wallace. He is definitely a masculine version of my cab, from 1967. He has a new, powerful Chevy V6 and lots of chrome. There are lots of other differences - some small, some large - and they have completely different personalities and drive feel. Better photos will be coming, when Matt is off work during daylight hours!

In other news, Blackberry has started using the cat tower. Fig is growing out his mane, tail, and bloomers. I made my first sock, then followed it with five others to decorate the Christmas tree. There's one for each resident here. I matched the yarn, size, and shape to each. Matt's is handspun gray wool. Mine is rainbow. Blackberry's is black angora rabbit. Thoth's (hard to see in the pic) is glossy black wool with an enlarged belly. Fig's has mohair to represent his fluffiness. Skwatch's (the PP is for Peachy Pie, his most-oft-used nickname) is small and slim, and I made a mini Thing 2 to represent his favorite toy, lost in the Dreaded Flea Cleansing of late 2004.