A Little Progress

It's not a particularly exciting project, but I can actually post a little knitting progress, for a change this week. Paige has been very insistent that we go up to see her at U.C. Davis to let her meet our new puppy. How long of a trip is that, you might ask. Well, on a good day, it's four-and-a half hours. That was obviously a ridiculous idea because little Rolly is only six weeks old and certainly not house or car broken, but, of course, the reason I have a sock to post today is because I knit for nearly ten hours this weekend, going back and forth between home and Davis. It really did seem like a bad idea, but it turned out fine, and Paige and Rolly were so happy to meet each other. We ended up having a wonderful little "Davis" weekend.

 It was the Davis Whole Earth Festival this weekend, which made us feel right at home since it reminded us of all it was lacking was the cannabis aroma that permeates many Humboldt County activities, but considering it's a college sanctioned festival, that makes sense. Paige carried Rolly around the whole time, and was pretty much mobbed much of the time, with innumerable people asking to see him.

After our jaunt around the Whole Earth Festival, we made a little stop at Let Them Eat Cake, which is a  wonderful little cupcake bakery. It has a kind of French atmosphere inside and the most delicious cupcakes. I had an "illegally blonde" cupcake and Paige had a "fleur de cel chocolate caramel" one. They were worth every calorie. Russ said he didn't want one, but we ignored his attempts at self control and bought him one anyone. It didn't last very long!

OK, so this picture was staged, but there isn't anything cuter than a worn out little beagle. Paige added the little stuffed toy for effect.

We ended our Saturday with a run along the Davis Avenue of Trees. Paige puppy-sat for us for about an hour, and we had a fun run, even though it was about 88 degree at six in the evening. We felt a little limited in our dining choices having Rolly along, but discovered that the Thai Nokon restaurant downtown didn't mind us having a puppy on the patio, so we had a great Thai meal of spicy duck, silver noodles and kum ka gai. Paige even came back to our hotel with us to spend the night so that she could spend a little more time with us...er, I mean Rolly, ha, ha.

Rolly was once again a perfect traveler on the way home, although he wasn't particularly excited about having a collar and leash on when we stopped for coffee at our half-way point.

Rolly

I hardly every get much knitting done this time of the year. With the end of the college semester coming up in three weeks and the high school finishing the first week in June,  I'm almost always struggling to find much free time at all this time of year. And now, I don't anticipate knitting even a little bit until summer vacation because we have a new little member of our family to totally distract me. His name is Rolly, in honor of the fat, little dalmation in 101 Dalmations, who was so hungry he "could eat an elephant." Our little Rolly isn't that fat, but he was the chubbiest in the litter.  We're all officially in love, well, except for Gidget, but she'll come around.

And yes, those of you who know us,  we were looking for a "Rowdy clone." Russ looked at some other breeds, but we just kept coming back to beagles. We also thought about rescuing a dog, but we do lots of other P.C. stuff, and we really wanted a puppy. I'd kind of forgotten how much work a puppy is, but we've had a fun couple of days getting to know him and probably spoiling him too much. That's OK, Rowdy was a well-behaved doggie (for a beagle), and we spoiled him.

Good For Me!

I shouldn't be as proud of these socks as I am, but I am. I had quite a bit of trouble getting started with them, and I'm almost surprised that I've finished them. I really like Spilly Jane's patterns, but this pattern is one of my favorites. I left off her skulls this time, but next time I'll add them back because they are kind of a neat addition to the pattern.

It's a pretty safe bet that I won't be wearing these socks anytime soon, considering that it was 72 degrees today, but I'll keep them lying around the living room for a while just to enjoy them.

Chipotle Carrot Hummus

I was considering entering a recipe contest tomorrow. The Haggin Oaks Farmers Market in Bakersfield is having a "carrot cook-off," and since I eat hummus almost everyday and love variations of it,  I thought of entering chipotle carrot hummus. I cheated and found a recipe for smokey carrot hummus from The Year in Food, which I altered a little, omitting the sesame seeds and adding cilantro and adding my favorite seasoning, Spicely Chili Ancho. The "smokey" flavor is supposed to come from roasting the carrots beforehand, but I don't think I let them roast quite long enough. The end result was really good though. You can just see it peaking out from under the avocado slices. I've decided not to enter it after all though since I'd rather sleep in. It still provided us with a nice dinner tonight. The scrambled eggs are made from a goose egg I bought at the farmer's market last weekend, and I bought the asparagus today. Yum!

Chipotle Carrot Hummus

four carrot, cut into chunks
two cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup cooked garbonzo beans
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. smokey Spanish paprika
1 tsp Chili Ancho
1 tsp. chipotle chili powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cumin
2 Tbsp olive oil


Chop carrots and garlic in 2 tsp olive oil and roast for 20 minutes. Dump carrots  and garlic in food processor and whirl a couple of times. Then add the rest of your ingredients. You might need a little more olive oil to get the right consistency.

Fighting Second Sock Syndrome

I've been fighting "SSS," and I think I may just win. The weather has been in the 70s this week and is supposed to be about the same next week, so I really doubt I'll be wearing these socks any time soon, but I'm happy to be near the completion of a project after so many false starts this winter. I even started a little bunny too. Of course, I had envisioned sending him to one of the new babies in our extended family in time for Easter, but that was just plain silly. Bunnies don't have to be seasonal anyway.

Of course, I've been shirking my grading obligations in my pursuit of knitting success. I often say that I "never take my laundry to school," making the point that work constantly overlaps on my personal life, but my personal life rarely overlaps onto my work life. Still, those papers won't grade themselves. I guess I'd better let the completion of my sock wait another night!

Spring Break

Good Friday is like the "Sunday Afternoon" of Spring Break to me, besides it religious significance. I've had a wonderful break, but I'm starting to feel that little bit of angst connected with the fact that I have school work to do that I will probably postpone until Sunday night. Oh well, it's been fun while it lasted. Russ and I started the week by spending a day on the coast on Saturday. We went to our favorite spots mostly, including a walk near a beach called Pirate's Cove. When I was a kid, it was known as a nude beach, but now that there's easy access to it, I think those days are gone, if they ever existed to begin with. Some rather obnoxious-sounding twenty something men on the trail asked us if we knew where the nude beach was. I told them that it was just a legend. They were very sad to hear that and had to use the F-word a little more excessively than before as they turned around to go back to the parking lot.

Monday, we went on a hike we've been meaning to go on for years. It's called the Rock Fort Ranch Trail, and it's a popular place for rock climbing. We just hiked. In over two hours, we only saw one person. My cell phone worked though, so I didn't feel too isolated.

 I hadn't anticipated how strenuous the trail was going to be. It was a nice wide trail, but steep most of the way, so steep that it was kind of slow going, even going back down.

 I was thinking that this footprint was a vulture's, but we saw a big turkey later, so that solved the mystery. We also saw some bobcat tracks, which was kind of neat, but it made me wish that maybe we'd brought along some pepper spray in case we ran into some of its larger relatives.

I managed to watch several Netflix movies too. One of them was Bottle Shock, which is about how wine from the Napa Valley beat out French wines in a competition during the 1970s, and ended up helping to start the Napa Valley wine boom. It wasn't a very well-acted movie, even Bill Pullman, who I usually love just didn't seem that good to me. But, it did get me more interested in Napa Vallley wine, and it is the reason that somehow Russ and I left Trader Joe's on Tuesday with a $44 bottle of Grgich Hill Estate Cabernet. We've never come close to paying that much for wine, but I'll say it was worth it, although I'm thinking we better go back to our normal $10 dollar bottles for quite a while.

I did manage to do a little bit of knitting this week too. I even actually finished a sock.  L'amour et la Morte is one of my favorite patterns, even though I'm not really a skull fan, so I just did the heart part for these. Now, if I can just complete the second one, even though I won't be wearing these until next year.

There's Always Something

    Our beloved beagle Rowdy, died a couple of weeks ago.  He was only eight,  but we called him "the Old Man." He had pancreatitis and almost died a couple of years ago, but he's been healthy and happy most of the time since then. On the other hand, we weren't that shocked when the vet said that he had it again and that his kidneys were failing, but we were so sad.. .He was Kai's dog, and they were a perfect match for each other.  I don't really want to write about it too much, but since I've used this blog to record milestones, I wanted to at least mention Rowdy's passing. He was an incredible dog!

I told Russ that I was even going to miss saying the name "Rowdy." Kai chose it because it was the boy's dog in Summer of the Monkeys, a book by Wilson Rawls, the author of Where the Red Fern Grows, two books we all loved. I do still get to use it a little though. The picture above is of Rowdy Jr., Rowdy's son. A good friend owns him, and we're dog sitting him this week. It's been nice having a Rowdy "Look-a-Like" around, especially for his sister Gidget, who's keeps looking for Old Rowdy everywhere.

Spring Time Rituals

 Yes, as a matter of fact, I do knit. I just don't finish anything. I bought this pretty Lornas Laces yarn last year some time, and I've started several sock patterns with it. I've always had a little trouble with "perfectionism," not that I strive for perfection really. It's more that I don't usually think that my finished products are good enough. So, this is "Friday Harbor" from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road, and I've successfully knit socks from this pattern at least three times. Somehow, though, this just wasn't what I wanted with this sock yarn, so I unraveled it. And started another pattern, which I am about to unravel again. Focus, Caroline, Focus. I don't know if unraveling projects is an actual ritual, but I sure do a lot of it, especially when it starts getting warmer, and I'm just knitting because I like it, not because I think I'm going to actually wear anything I'm knitting, in the near future.

One of my true spring-time rituals is to visit The Malibu Getty with my honors English students. Actually, that's a lie. My friend, who teaches A.P. U.S. History arranges the trip for our students, and I just tag along. If I had a million dollars or so, I might consider living in Malibu because of the beautiful weather and scenery, but I'm pretty happy to live close enough to just visit a couple times a year.

My favorite part of the Getty Malibu is the gardens. They're Mediterranean, which means that most of the plants and trees they have growing there can be grown in the Central Valley of California, where I live. There are innumerable herbs, and fig, peach, and citrus trees. There's even a citron tree, which is intriguing to me since I've never tasted actual "citron" other than in a fruitcake at Christmas.

Another springtime ritual for me is to go to swim meets. This is the first year that I don't have a kid in the pool, but I went to the first swim meet of the season last week, and who should show up but my  son Kai. I think he misses it a little too. I know he does since he's been working with the Master's Swim team for the last coupe of weeks. I used to bring knitting projects to swim meets, but this time, I just came and sat and enjoyed myself. Maybe next week, I'll do a little knitting...or stay home where it's warm since spring swim meets are notorious for being cold and wet places to be.

Stuck in Lodi Again

I think John Fogerty should have given Lodi more of a chance. We had an awesome time there this weekend at the Lodi Wine and Chocolate Weekend. I have to admit that we've passed the exit for Lodi while traveling up Interstate 5 probably a hundred times, and we've never thought to stop there, but it's a great town with cute shops and interesting-sounding restaurants. After an afternoon of tasting wine at some wonderful wineries and indulging in decadent treats like "Pigs in the Mud," chocolate dipped linguica sausage, you'd think we wouldn't have been interested in eating a real meal at the end of the day. Being the troopers that we are, however, we persevered and had a delicious meal at the Dancing Fox in downtown Lodi. It was just about a perfect day with good friends and perfect weather too!

To add to our fun, Lodi is only about 40 minutes from Davis, where our daughter attends school, so we ditched our friends who are more devoted wine fans than we are and had planned for a second day of wine tasting, and drove up to see Paige.

We missed the local Davis farmer's market, which is held on Saturdays, but, no surprise, there were still plenty of things to keep us occupied, including a little "peddler's fair," in the park with a couple of yarn booths. I bought some alpaca yarn at this little booth which lured me by displaying this darling, purple platypus!

I was happy to see that Paige was wearing her headband that I sent her last week. She even said she'd like another one. Yay! An excuse to knit a simple project again! Russ and I went for a little run in the afternoon, and then finished our day by dining at the Yeti Restaurant, which serves Indian and Nepalese food. It was really good and not too expensive. Still, I'm thinking that maybe it's time to go on a financial and food diet for the next couple of months!

Kind of Productive

I live in a very peaceful neighborhood. When we first moved into our house eighteen years ago, there were lots of kids around, so it makes sense that it's very quiet new since all of those kids, including mine, have grown up and "flown the coup." Last year, a young couple moved in a couple of houses down from us. They got to work on their house right away, updating, and working in the yard on weekends, so, of course, I instantly liked them since I approve of hard workers. Last Christmas they gave us some delicious homemade jam for Christmas, and I told them thank you, but never recipricated. OK, so this is a little embarrassing. They had a baby this fall, and I had never even noticed that our cute, little neighbor girl was pregnant. I am pretty sure that they had a girl, since I've seen little hints of pink when I've seen them unloading the baby from the car, etc. So, I knit a little hat for that, little anonymous baby this week. It even has hearts on it for Valentine's Day. I'm pretty sure it's too big for a fairly young baby, but, oh well. I even thought of trying to shrink it a little, but it's super wash wool, so shrinking, unfortunately, isn't going to work. It's all good though. Someday, this cap will fit our little neighbor baby, who I hope is a girl, or, at least, a boy who doesn't mind a wearing a feminine little cap.