My Middle Name is Patience

Meandering Monday

 

You are a Knife

You are precise, determined, and detail oriented. You mean what you say, and you say what you mean. You enjoy taking risks and living on the edge. You are a controversial person. You opinions tend to be divisive.

What Utensil Are You?

Divisive? Precise? But generally I do say what I mean and mean what I say (unless it's really mean and then I'm more likely to mutter it under my breath. I hate hurting someone's feelings for no good reason.) Found at the incomparable KSD's site. 

 

From Lyssa's blog:

The Recipe For Carrie K

3 parts Playfulness 2 parts Sass 1 part Moxie Splash of Allure Sip slowly on the beach

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Speaking of the beach. That's a  parasailor (?), in case you can't tell. It looks like fun....but it also looks like the wind and the ocean take turns batting you about like a catspaw.

 

Books read in July:

1. The Halo Effect by MJ Rose (2005) Awful. AWFUL. So awful that I was compelled about halfway through the book to pick up a pen, argue with the characters across the page and throw the book away when I finished it. The ostensible protagonist of the book is a sex therapist that gets overly attached to one of her clients, an angelic high class call girl who has disappeared. In searching for her, she pretends to be her replacement to "question" the clientele.  If she hadn't lectured the reader incessantly about our closed minds and prudish ideas I might not have gotten so riled when she proceeded to confide when seeing one of the men that they were talking about something obscene. Really? How close minded and prudish. Gah. This might have made a decent porno novel but as a thriller? Yucko.
2. Bound by Sally Gunning (2008) A story of a girl who is indentured by her father to a widowed man with a daughter after surviving the voyage over from England in the 1770's. The girls grow up and troubles ensue.
3. The Cobra Event by Robert Preston (1999) I loved this book! A manufactured bio weapon loosed in the City. Good times.
4. This Rough Magic (1964)
5. and Thornyhold (1988)by Mary Stewart. I hadn't read Mary Stewart since my teens, possibly. This Rough Magic was more my liking than Thornyhold but both the books were fun reads.
6. Black Magic Woman by Justin Gustainis (2007) Best book of the month. When's the new one coming out? WHEN? January 2009. Not until then? Sheesh. Quincy Morris is my favorite go-to guy for the supernatural, after Harry Dresden, of course
7. Sovereign Ladies: Sex, Sacrifice & Power; The Six Reigning Queens of England by Maureen L Waller (2006). I knew about Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, not as much as I thought about Queen Victoria and more than I realized about Elizabeth II but I knew nothing about Mary and Anne, James II's daughters. Ungrateful Daughters also by Maureen Waller is in my TBR stack now.
8. The First Queen of England: The Myth of Bloody Mary by Linda Porter (2007). A nicely written well rounded account of Mary Tudor 's reign although I hadn't realized anyone still believed that myth.. Evidently because Linda Porter rails against it a great deal.
9.  Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (2008). The apocalypse has happened (slightly in the future) and what's left of the United States is run by an Islamic President in one part of the country and an old world Colonel in another. There are those that would bring The One Faith to all the world - the Old One, the man behind the 9/11 attacks, unbelievably old now but kept young through science. A really fascinating apocalyptic adventure with an eye  look at religious schism with both sides represented by their best and worst in an action oriented adventure. The dust jacket said that the book was a sequel that could stand alone, but I'm sorry I didn't read Prayers of the Assassin first and get the backstory on Sarah Dougan and Rakkim Epps.  Bookmark Magazine says: Critics expressed different ideas about the plot, using words such as "preposterous," "credible," and even "ordinary" to describe it. There's no doubt, however, that Ferrigno raises important questions about religious freedom while handling the subject of Islamic faith with great insight and evenhandedness. If the plot sometimes overwhelms character development, he still allows his creations to air their own opinions without moralizing. In sum: a fast-paced thriller with timely appeal. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Oh phooey on the critics. I liked it.
10.  The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman (2007) This was fun! Matt Fuller "discovers" a time machine - accidentally of course and has to keep traveling into the future to find his way back home. Where home turns out to be is another story.

Knitting in July:

I'm almost done with TDOT. Both borders for the sleeve knit, one sleeve almost ready to attach the border to it - with the borders attached and knitting it from the top down, once I do the other sleeve, it's done. All weaving was done earlier (in an effort to not think about the sleeves.)

Socks. I have three pairs of unfinished socks on the needles. Wait. I have one to the foot, one to the cuff, and one that's not quite on the needles. In fact, it's not quite to the cake but it's next. Maybe.

 

We will not speak of the rest of the poor neglected WIPs. Alice Starmore uses way too much green. I wonder how odd Mary would look if I just abandoned all the ugly greens now? I'm only about a third of the way done with the body. You could probably barely tell. If you were BLIND. [sigh]

 

The beach! what I did Saturday instead of knitting or reading. I've got to say, when one feels grumpy there's nothing better than getting blown around on the beach and then scarfing down a fab dish of oysters for dinner. (Oysters from Washington, I'm sad to say. We were in Bodega Bay. But they sure were good oysters). There should have been more pictures but I stuck everything in the trunk and just wandered the beach. Too bad too because it looks like sand castles are out and driftwood forts are in.

 

Hez sez "Hey! That's not me! I never get to go anywhere fun." (Not that she'd like the car ride or the beach very much. It's the principle.)

Finally Friday

Who knew sitting around a hospital would be so exhausing? But her shoulder surgery went well on Wednesday, we got there on time and I was home before Project Runway started. I can't believe that Blayne didn't get "auf'ed". That outfit was atrocious.

Yesterday was Continuing Ed or as I like to call it - Knit All Day. This was what I started with. but not what I ended up with. The pattern and the yarn were competing and they're both too pretty to let that happen. Mash Up socks by Kristi and the yarn is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress hand dyed by Bellamoden.

I can't tell if those links worked or not. The insert stuck forever. If only Typepad would allow me to post a wee bit faster or even type. Gah. You know how my middle name is Patience? It's a LIE.

The bunny says "You can't catch me!" And he's right. But since it's the summer and he's hiding out eating the apricots, they're hoping to lull him by the time winter gets here.

It was the bunny picture when I posted it. Weird.

Have a good weekend!

Fun on the Ferries

While I spent most of my weekend putting the darts in the wrong place on Elizabeth (I think, I just glanced at it this morning packing it into my purse) I did get out Sunday night  and saw Two Days in Paris with BFF starring Julie Delpy (who wrote and directed it too) and Adam Goldberg - pretty good movie! Much, much better than *I expected. I'd tell you my favorite lines, but it'll wreck it if you see it. It's a relationship movie (as I suspected) but thankfully it's not two days of Deep Talking About THE Relationship. They're both pretty quirky - to say the least. (*Yeah, I hate romantic relationship movies generally. Give me War or The Bourne Ultimatum or even The Queen instead.)

Monday I dragged A on the various ferries   since the Bay Bridge was down for the weekend -  (Click to enlarge any of the picures) to go to the Sausalito Art Fair. Despite her constant need to get to places at the last second and my desire to get there with plenty of time to spare, we managed to catch all the ferries (although there was running & sniping involved) on time. The biggest glitch was that I didn't realize the first ferry out of Oakland didn't go to Pier 41! It dropped us off at the SF Ferry Building with about 20 minutes to get to Pier 41 and no idea of how far away it was (not that far, although I don't think she could have hoofed it in time) or a bus schedule. Luckily while every cab that came by was in use, the F Line showed up in the nick of time.

The Art Festival itself was much fun! Lots of art, yes I know! Oddly enough. But true. All of it pretty much priced out of my range but fun to look at.

The Golden Gate Bridge was nicely shrouded in fog on our way in but lovely on the way back. We even got an unexpected loop around Angel Island on the trip home.

Pictures of Alcatraz tomorrow - that is one gloomy hopeless looking rock. You can just feel the misery rolling off of it.

I can't believe that in all the time I've lived here (my whole life), I've never taken a ferry. Chartered boats, sure. Sailboats. The occasional dinner cruise. But never a ferry, although I did drop off a girlfriend at the Oakland Ferry on the way to work in the morning for a month or so while the Bay Bridge was out of commission from the earthquake. She said it was the most relaxing commute home she'd ever had. On the water, rocking gently, a nice glass of wine......bus & BART weren't even bad after that.