Air Journal: Escape to NYC

I had this thing for work in NYC yesterday (that'll teach the recruitment coordinator to use people he's never met before for events!) and since I needed to burn vacation hours and I also needed to get the hell out of town for at least a few days, I flew in on Friday. I won't go into a lot of details, but here's the round-up:

Overheard in New York:

They put us in the corner. Baby ain't put in the corner.
--Woman in Sylvia's Restaurant, Harlem

This was my haul from the Kinokuniya there. You could fit the entire LA Kinokuniya location inside the basement of the one in NYC with room leftover, and then there are 2 whole more floors!


Overheard in New York, Part II:

I love the smell of dead rat in the morning. It smells like... victory!
--MTA worker in the 42nd St Port Authority subway station

And, ZOMG, I thought drivers in LA were bad. Traffic signals, just a vague suggestion to both pedestrians and motorists. Like this primo parking job:


Plus I saw a real live NYC subway rat. It wasn't that big.

Oh, and I was knitting on the subway. Because I'm cool'n'stuff. But even though I went into 2 different Dunkin' Donuts (one of them twice), I didn't manage to find a Chocolate Kreme-filled. :(

Metro Journal: Feb 18 Come Here Already

I went down to Little Tokyo today. In chronological order:

1. While I was waiting for the crossing light at an intersection, a school bus stopped at the red light in the right turn lane. Some dumbass behind him honked. Ok, (a) while it is, with certain provisos, generally legal to make a right turn on red here, it is by no means legally required, and (b), this was a school bus, fer chrissakes. For all the dumbass car driver knew (and he probably didn't know much more than the location of his car horn), the bus driver could have been dealing with a kid with a problem. The bus driver did turn after less than a minute, and the car behind him didn't even pretend to stop. The next car probably wouldn't have stopped either, except we were already stepping into the crosswalk because, hello, we had the crossing light. If only I could shoot lasers out my eyes, this guy would have had the Mark of Karen burned onto his forehead. Seriously, ZOMG, you had to wait 30 more seconds of your life to make a turn! It was a fricking SCHOOL BUS!
2. There were some hyperactive kids on the 780 for a couple miles, singing loudly and extremely out of key for the enjoyment of, well, no one else on the bus. What would I do without headphones? Um, probably get arrested for throttling a kid.
3. On the 94 going downtown, a man in a suit was having serious difficulty navigating the aisle to the exit. I didn't want to assume he was drunk, but as he walked by, I could smell the fumes. He almost fell stepping out the door. Oi.
4. I found a couple books at Kinokuniya, including the pictured book of maneki neko (Japanese lucky beckoning cats). All cats, all beckoning, some even in costumes!
5. At Curry House, I tried the masala curry with fried tofu and chicken. While it was pretty good, I still like the chicken katsu much more.
6. The last block up 1st to Hill St and my stop is, guessing conservatively, at least a 30 degree grade. Close to the top, I saw that the 794 was about a block away. Ok, there was no way I was running up the rest of that hill. Fortunately, the stop light was with me, and even though I had to sprint up Hill half a block to the stop, I made it. And then wished I could have gotten a window seat because I wanted to pass out. I'm seriously out of shape.

Knittin' Crap: Ravelympics Day 4

I did relatively little knitting yesterday, but still a fair bit. I was getting a little burned out, and I was also trying to figure out what to start next, as it looks like I will finish the mitered pullover in the next few days. I had thought I would do the poofy flower pullover in the picture, but after making two motifs, I realized that was the kind of project I need to work on a little at a time, or I would go nuts. I then tried a two-color, reversible, double-knit scarf from another Japanese book, but I've never done that technique before and my fingers weren't getting used to the motion, so it would have taken forever to complete.

I don't have the yarn in my stash to do any other projects from my Japanese pattern library, at least ones that I could finish in about a week, with the exception of amigurumi, and I'm a little burned out on amigurumi. I plan to go to Little Tokyo tomorrow, which I've avoided for months due to lack of funds. With my tax refund in hand (well, a small portion only), I'm going to eat chicken katsu at Curry House (yum!) and see if Kinokuniya has something that interests me that I can make with some of my copious stash yarn choices.

And that yarn groove on my finger? Even if it's not permanent, it's definitely there until that skin grows out. At least it doesn't hurt. I suspect it has to do not only with the amount I've been knitting, but also that the yarn I'm using is wool, which I don't work with that often. I don't think I have a true histamine allergy to wool, but my skin still seems to be reacting to it.

Spoonerisms: Helper *cough* Cats

I was at Kinokuniya today to get stuff for packages for two different swaps, both this month's $10 Amigurumi swap and for a Kawaii/Zakka ("cute"/an untranslatable term for objects that are generally utilitarian and aesthetically pleasing and somehow comfortably familiar) swap. I got a couple things in the Aisle of Unbearable Cuteness, including, for myself, a Rilakkuma badge card holder. I had been meaning to get one so I could tether my TAP card to my bag, but I was just going to get one of those cheap-o clear plastic jobs. This is way cooler.

This time I also ventured into territory I generally try to avoid: the manga zone. Actually, the zone encompasses about the middle ¹/₃ of the store these days, but anyway. They had a few turning displays with all those weird collectibles, those little trinkets where you don't know which one you're getting until you open the package. Most were anime-related, but I don't know crap about most of those series. There were random cute things, and then.... there was a display with these Siamese cats wearing battle outfits. They were seriously cute. I had to get some of their mystery charms for no obvious reason. Now, I didn't know what the hell "Monster Hunter Portable" was, but cute is cute. I got 3, although it looks like there 12 varieties. I really want the chick (?) with attitude, shown on the right-hand side of this picture. When I got home, I did a little research. Apparently the PlayStation Portable game Monster Hunter Portable 2G features cat helpers for your player. I watched a bit on YouTube. I have no idea whether they're helpful within the context of the game, but I couldn't help thinking that in my experience, "helper cat" is an oxymoron.

Metro Journal: Sept 16 Hard Tops

First off, I felt a lot better today. The head pain has subsided to a dull ache, at least if I don't touch my forehead or make any exaggerated facial expressions. Of course, while my mother did tell me that, if I couldn't say something nice, I shouldn't say anything at all¹, she never said anything about facial expressions.²

I had that job interview in West Hollywood this afternoon. I just missed my short-cut bus to the 780. It has gotten hot again here, not the kind of weather you want to walk in in the middle of the day, but as I was walking slowly towards the stop, I saw the Beeline drive by, meaning it would loop around in a few minutes and intersect the 780 at Central. Of course, once we got to the stop, which is actually a block post Central, I got to watch the 780 pull away while I was waiting for the crossing light. Crap. Fortunately I had left plenty of buffer room. I still had to sit and wait 15 minutes for the next one, though. While I was there, someone came and asked if she had missed the 780. I told her it should be another minute or two, because I had just missed the last one 13 minutes ago.

On the 780, about the time we were crossing the L.A. Drainage Ditch, the woman in front of me turned around and asked if it was the 780. I nodded. Hint #1 was that it wasn't stopping every two blocks.

I changed buses at Santa Monica and Fairfax. I needed either the 4 or the 704, but it was still at least 10 minutes before either came. It was a 4, but the route is so busy that both lines use the 60' accordion buses. A man sat next to me and politely started telling me about an on-line radio station that has changed his life. Now, he never said anything about religion, but he was Talking That Talk. He encouraged me to visit it and to tell my friends! Tell my family! (I kept my word and just checked out the home page, and sure enough, it's some guy pushing some Christian DIY denomination.)

Going back I took the 704. I needed to go downtown to Little Tokyo to pick up some stuff for swap packages. (See separate post.) It's a long enough distance from West Hollywood to the closest Red Line station that the 4 would have taken a very long time. One of those visibly and olfactorily unkempt persons sat across the aisle from me. Joy.

By now it was late afternoon and the temperature outside was comfortable. I walked to Little Tokyo, got some seriously かわいい³ stuff. It was a little after 5:30, but I knew I should eat. (I think one of the contributory factors to my face-plant episode was not eating consistently or properly.) I always eat at Curry House when I'm there, so I thought I'd check out the other places. There was a place that seemed to put beef on everything. There was a noodle house that said on the menu they put pork in all their ramen broth. I don't eat mammals, so that was out. There was a place called "Tofu Village," which sounded like it would be safe, but from the display menu, it looks like, whether or not there's tofu in their dishes, there's also either pork of beef. There were a couple restaurants, including a sushi place, that weren't open yet. Curry House it was. As I usually get the chicken katsu, I decided to try to branch out a bit. I ordered the curry udon. They brought this enormous, steaming hot pot out. Wow. I had to wait awhile and eat very slowly, and I'm pretty sure I looked like a dork doing it too,⁴ but it was really good. Still, the katsu is really good, too, and easier to eat. Oh, and as it was still so early, the restaurant, which gets really crowded after about 7, was mostly empty, so I got to hear these two middle-aged guys two tables away discussing a movie script. It sounded... stupid. The screenwriter was trying to defend the rather sadistic aspects by saying that's why people go to movies. Yeah, I didn't quite get it, either.

After I ate, I got some sweets at Marukai, then walked back to Hill and 1st to catch the 794. It was about 7 by then. I sat to wait. And wait. A woman asked me if the 794 was still running and I said I was pretty sure it was, because I was waiting for it. We both passed on a 94. Finally, around 7:30, just as I had resolved to get on the next bus, even if it was the Chatsworth Express, a 794 came. Phew.

I got off at Los Feliz and went across the street to wait at the 180/181/780 stop. I didn't care which came first; they would all get me mostly home, and I wasn't sure if the 780 was still running anyway. It was and came first. I stepped around one of those extremely annoying people who stand at the front so they can talk to the driver, thus making it even more of an obstacle course for people trying to get on. The guy was in his early 20s, wearing a dress shirt and pants. He was talking to the driver about the "church" he worked at, doing counselling. Even though I was several rows back, he had a high, clear voice that carried. He kept asking the driver about areas of his life where he might have problems. I had a sinking feeling.... wait for it.... wait for it... Yes, he dropped the 'S' bomb. Scientology. I was too tired and too close to home and also lacking elbow room, so it just wasn't convenient to pull out my headphones, but I was grimacing in psychic pain, which, of course, made me wince in physical pain because of my swollen forehead.

I walked the last half mile home. I must be a hard top and not a convertible, because when I got home, I was still a devout agnostic.

---

¹She might have said it, but that doesn't mean I always take her advice.
²Not that I would have paid any attention if she did.
³kawaii - Japanese for "cute"
⁴Hey, the ramen-Western film Tampopo shows lots of noodle slurpage going on!

Knittin' Crap: Swapping Under the Sea

The first picture of my $10 Amigurumi group swap creation: a Mer-Cat

The second picture, taken about 15 seconds later. You can still see the ear... sort of.

The theme for the August $10 Amigurumi group swap was creatures that live under the sea. I took a slight liberty and made a creature that would live under the sea if it actually existed.

My swap partner likes anime stuff, so I made a trip to Little Tokyo last week. I got her an official Studio Ghibli Chibi Totoro magnet and this absurdly cute Mamegoma eraser with seals in all sorts of under-sea costumes. See the shark! See the sea otter with a baby seal in matching costume! See the seal in a seal costume! And the little white seal on the front sides actually slides back and forth. Extreme cuteness!

Meanwhile, I got geologygirl's swap package and immediately experienced swap performance anxiety. She actually made two amigurumi and a clownfish tote bag, which drives the Camera Hog nuts.

San-X bonus picture! These stickers came in some Japanese candy which tastes like, well, Frankenberry cereal. I guess the Japanese use the same fake strawberry flavor we have here. And see where Korilakkuma is drawing a face on Rilakkuma's butt!

Knittin' Crap: Sweet!

Yesterday on my day trip to Little Tokyo, I got a new amigurumi book and the latest issue of the knitting/crochet magazine Keito Dama. Kinokuniya had a new amigurumi book out called "Sweets." It really is sweet! All kinds of anthropomorphized pastries and snacks. Because, you know, if you sew a smiley face on anything, it becomes super-cute!



They also had these awesome manga-ized figurines of DC Comics superheroes. I loved the Wonder Woman, but at $50, it was more than I was willing to pay. It was awesome, though! Oh, here's the manufacturer's official announcement. Is that not totally awesome!?

Metro Journal: June 24 Little Person Tokyo

My friend Steve just started a two-month sabbatical. As an act of vengeance love, he pretty much has full-time parenting duties to his 2-year-old son, Caden. As I am still unemployed, we decided to try to get out and take little day trips.

Our first day trip was to Little Tokyo. The plan had a little subversive agenda on my side: to spread the joy of public transportation. Steve lives a couple of miles from the North Hollywood Red Line Station. The Red Line is perfect for going to Little Tokyo, as I've done on multiple occasions. And yesterday's weather forecast was just about perfect for strolling around during the day.

I decided to take the bus over to Steve's house in Burbank and meet him there. It's about a 10 mile drive. I've spoken before about how even though the two cities are side-by-side neighbors, it is a pain to get directly from Glendale to any part of Burbank west of their downtown Media Center, which sits on the east side of Burbank. As far as the bus goes, at best it would seem to be an hour trip, but mine was a little more because of timing issues. There's no way to do it without taking at least three buses or walking a lot. And two of the three buses I took don't even run on weekends, which means no bus goes within half a mile or more of his place on weekends. But I got to within a block of his home without a hitch and got a lot of reading done in the process.

Caden tried to convince me he had shotgun for the ride to the Red Line station, but after his dad came out he got in his child seat. We drove to the station, parked, took the escalator down, and Caden helped Steve get his ticket from the machine. (I already had my Day Pass loaded on my TAP card.) Then even more escalators! A train was waiting (this is the start of the line) so we all sat down. Caden seemed most fascinated with the doors when they opened at each stop. I guess if a door opens, he feels a real need to go through it. That sounds like an interesting philosophy. The train got fairly crowded as we were moving along, and for awhile a man sat down in the seat next to me and talked about his 3-year-old. Steve asked if 3 was any easier than 2. "Nooooooo!"

We got off at the Civic Center stop, which is where I usually get off, except the first working up escalator from the platform we found put us on the Temple St exit. I always got out at Spring so I was a little confused, but outside we figured out where we were and strolled down toward Little Tokyo and to the little mall with the Kinokuniya Bookstore. We ate well at the Curry House and then hit the bookstore. Actually, I hit the bookstore. Caden was getting restless and apparently insisted on going up and down the stairs to the third floor several times before his manga-loving father was allowed to enter the Holy Land.

After I had perused the craft books and Steve had found some comic art books, I took him to the Unbearable Cuteness of Being Aisle. I pointed out some of the mamegoma items where the seals are wearing seriously cute costumes. Steve wondered why someone would dress baby seals in costumes. "Because it's unbelievably cute." He smacked his head. "Of course!" He got a mamegoma mug for his cuteness-loving wife. They didn't seem to have any nice impact-resistant San-X mugs, though, so Caden will have to wait. Meanwhile, I became Caden's Least Favorite Person for a little while because he, rather understandably, did not want to leave Super-Cute Overload Aisle empty-handed. (I have a hard time leaving it empty-handed, too.) He got upset when I repatriated some stuff. By the time we got outside and found a fancy water fountain, though, he had forgotten about it. Steve and I had plenty of time to show each other what we got, because Caden was busy with throwing every leaf he could find into the fountain. And because leaves aren't really good for throwing, they would often just plummet back to the ground and he would get multiple opportunities to throw the same leaf.

We decided to walk to Union Station. The first time I went to Kinokuniya last year, I had actually walked from Union Station. We ended up walking the long way around, but it was really nice out. And we walked by a lovely Federal Building which apparently had a prisoner holding area inside, I assume for keeping people brought downtown for trial in the multitude of courthouses there.

Caden was pretty much totally passed out in his stroller by now. We walked to the Olvera Street historic area across Alameda from Union Station and went into the old firehouse I had noticed back in October. It was cool. The building dates back to the late 1800s and acts as a museum for fire fighters in Los Angeles. The docent kept popping out amazing facts, like how sulfuric acid, mixed with an alkali, was used to fight fires. Another of the park's docents finally cut us short. It seems the museum was supposed to have closed half an hour earlier. My feet were tired from standing there almost an hour, but the guy had some great stories. I couldn't help but think my father would have liked to see that place, with its old, horse-drawn chemical engine.

It had magically become 3:30, so we decided we should straggle home. We went into Union Station, past the ambulance with lights blazing that was parked right in front. After I left Steve with directions to the poopy-diaper disposal and then the Red Line entrance, I took the Gold Line up to Pasadena and then the 780 into Glendale.

Metro Journal: May 26 Rilakkuma Express!

I went to Lunchmont to meet my former co-workers Joe and Bob for lunch. They were full of tales of woe, but it was great to see them again. Afterwards, I decided to go downtown since I had my day pass. I wasn't sure exactly how to get there, but I knew it was east and half the buses go downtown. It turned out to be easier than I thought. (14 to Vermont/Beverly, where there was a conveniently-located Red Line station!)

I hiked over to Kinokuniya. Their knitting and crochet section may not have contracted since my last visit, but it's definitely not getting up to its former proportions, either. I did find one book, then went to check out the super-cute stationary section.

They seriously put Rilakkuma and the other San-X characters on, well, everything that has a surface where you can put pictures of cute stuff. Then, I saw it.... It was a retractable Rilakkuma keychain! For use if I ever get another job! They also had a super-cute tote bag with various Mamegoma ("bean seal") characters all over and dressed in a variety of costumes. I loved the bumblebee costume! But it was kind of expensive and I have six billion tote bags, so I passed. But I might still make a bumblebee costume for my little seal.

I then went downstairs and got some goodies at the Marukai market and then shuffled home, albeit in a very circuitous way.

Buses/trains ridden:

• 780 WB
• 210 SB
• 14 EB
• Red Line
• walk walk walk
• Red Line
• Gold Line
• 780 WB

I certainly got my day pass's worth.

Other: More Rilakkuma Cuteness!

I was too lazy to take a picture, so I didn't mention getting Rilakkuma origami paper when I was at Kinokuniya last week.



(The Hello Kitty paper was from a previous visit.) Both packages even include cute character stickers! And the Rilakkuma paper has instructions to make his face, although it would look weird making it in the printed paper.



About 6 years ago, I was in a massive origami phase. It had started out as making small gift boxes for the beaded jewelry I made (I was also in the midst of a beading obsession that lasted over a decade) and progressed from there. I never did find a unicorn pattern I could make, though. I was pretty good at a T-rex pattern which I had memorized for awhile and have since forgotten. I don't make much origami now, but I still occasionally procure cute papers.

Anyway, this post was supposed to focus on Rilakkuma. (This is also occasionally Anglicized to "Relaxuma," making it rather clear that the word "relax" was incorporated from English.) I went back to the San-X Rilakkuma page to poke around some more and found this page of high quality images you can download and print out or use on your computer. There's a monthly calendar page which is useful to people who can't read Japanese, as the month is printed as YYYY.MM and the days of the week are even printed using English abbreviations. There are also various desktop background images featuring various San-X characters, pages that look like they could be used as wrapping paper, black and white outlines meant for coloring yourself, pages with light-colored backgrounds to be used as stationary, gift tags, icon images for your computer, and all kinds of other stuff. How neat!

This page features videos of various characters. The music of the first one, with little birds dancing, seemed to disturb Spoon somehow.

Knittin' Crap: Rilakkuma and Friends

Someone on Ravelry had mentioned something about the little amigurumi bear being a popular Japanese character. I went to Kinokuniya yesterday, and sure enough, they had all sorts of paraphernalia featuring the book's characters, all from the company San-X.

This guy is named Rilakkuma, a combination of the words "relax" and "bear." According to wikipedia, he likes mochi, pancakes, and doughnuts and has a mischievous little white bear named Korilakkuma and a chick named Kiiroitori, for whom there are also patterns in my book. I can't read this page on the San-X site, but as can you see, Rilakkuma is generally a pretty relaxed bear.

The baby seal is a mamegoma character. The white seal seems to be named Gomao, but there are other mamegoma characters, too.

Riding the Rails: Day 3 Am I There Yet?

... Day 3 continued ...

I should say that I was actually really hungry by now. It was late afternoon, I'd basically had a bagel for breakfast and lunch combined, and I'm sure the whole thing was making me cranky, although Olivia could have tried the patience of a saint. The only restaurants I could see near the Winchester Mystery House were big sit-down chains, and I wasn't that desperate.

I got off the bus after a few miles at Saratoga. I had forgotten that the walk from here to Kinokuniya was more like a mile until I had been walking awhile. It was mostly what looked like an older residential area, although the ubiquitous new condos and giant apartment complexes were starting to show up. I knew I was going in the right direction, but still, I couldn't see anything ahead that looked like stores until... There it was! Yay! In a strip mall mainly of Japanese stores.

In square footage, it was definitely bigger than the Los Angeles store, but it wasn't as densely packed with bookshelves. The stationary section looked larger, the manga section definitely seemed larger after I'd circulated a few times, and the crafts section was... smaller? Yes, I traveled around the store multiple times to see if they'd hidden stuff, but there were only about two shelves of knitting/crochet books. I was sorely disappointed. They did have a knitting stitches book I'd been looking for, but they didn't have any amigurumi books. What? Then on yet another circuit, I noticed that they had a small display of amigurumi books, both Japanese and American (English) publications, on a table near the front. It was still only a fraction of the selection in Los Angeles, though, and they didn't have the new Hello Kitty book I had wanted. I suppose I could have asked about it, but I was hungry and tired, and, well, didn't really need to be going out of my way to spend more money.

In addition to the 300 knitting stitches book, I got a book of crochet motifs you work continuously instead of the more common, mind-numbing method of sewing finished pieces together one at a time. I also got an amigurumi book I hadn't seen before. It had a lot of charm-like patterns, and a pattern of a bumblebee man that reminded me of that character on Mexican TV. Bumblebee man has a little lady bug lady friend, too.

I walked along the strip mall and went into a ramen house. It was a hole-in-the-wall, I-wonder-what-grade-this-would-get-if-San-Jose-did-Los-Angeles-style-health-inspection-grades, no-maybe-I-don't-want-to-know joint, but it was pretty crowded and no one keeled over while I was there. I looked at the menu, but all the ramen had pork (there was even a note -- "All ramen dishes have pork") and I don't eat mammals, so I got a boiled chicken salad with kimchi. The kimchi had completely drained my sinuses after about 3 bites. It was hot, but it was good, and the chicken had a good curry sauce on it.

I felt much better with food in my stomach. I was still tired, though, and the sun was beginning to get lower in the sky. I walked back down to the bus stop, which didn't seem so far away this time, and the bus came about 5 minutes later. I rode back to the light rail station where I had caught the first bus, and then waited about 15 minutes for a northbound train.

Riding the Rails: Day 3 Darwin In Action

... Day 3 continued ...

Our guide for the Winchester Mystery House Mansion Tour turned out to be a 12-year-old boy. Ok, I should be talking, since I look a fair deal younger than I am, so I'll give him a little credit and say he's 15, but not a day over. He had the script down, though, and could deliver it at about 120 miles-per-hour. He talked so fast that we ended up having to wait multiple times for the group ahead of us to move, and he wasn't even trying to rush us physically. You could tell as soon as he was asked a non-FAQ and had to go off the script. He stopped the sing-song recitation and started speaking at a more normal speed, interjecting the word "like" every sixth word or so. I don't mean to imply he seemed bored with his job or anything, because I didn't get that impression.

I'm not going to describe the house much, except to say that Sarah Winchester was rather crazy and also should not have been acting as her own architect. Also, if you ever go on the tour, particularly if it's the least bit cool outside, bring something warm to wear. I couldn't figure out why some parts of the house were so chilly, then it dawned on me. A lot of exterior walls had no insulation whatsoever. There was just the one layer of wood boards.

While there were many lovely stained glass windows and a number of oddities, the thing I will never forgot about the tour is Olivia. No, Olivia was not a Winchester, and she's not a ghost at the house. Well, not yet, anyway. Olivia was a little girl, maybe 3 years old, on the tour. I know her name quite well because her parents were forever saying, "Olivia, come here. Don't run ahead, Olivia. Come back here to mommy and daddy, Olivia."

Let me explain two things here. The first one is what I call "Darwin In Action," sort of my personal version of the Darwin Awards. Bus Person Car is one variation. However, I've seen some parents allow if not encourage ("hey, kid, let's jaywalk in the middle of the block here on this busy street after dark!" -- seen it) their young children to attempt to take themselves out of the gene pool. Unfortunately, that would rarely solve the problem, as the parents are generally not placing their own further reproductive abilities at risk. Who knows, maybe there's some "Bad Seed" action here I don't know about it. I may be flip about it, but it would really piss me off if I had to witness something predictably horrible actually coming to fruition.

The second thing: the Winchester Mystery House can be dangerous if a person doesn't pay attention to where they're going. Someone not paying attention can damage something old and irreplaceable, get lost, or trip and fall and seriously injure themselves. This is most definitely not a place where you'd want a 3-year-old darting around out of sight of her parents. Well, unless you were her parents and you somehow weren't too averse to the idea of losing her.

Except that was exactly how Olivia's parents were acting. They were taking turns carrying an infant who was about 12-months old. This presumably would have left the hands of the other parent free to, oh, I don't know, hold on to Olivia. But, no, the kid kept skittering between people without looking where she was going, bumping into them, scaring the hell out of me when I was bumped in the knee not because I thought it was a ghost, but because I was picturing what my prison sentence would be like if I went to the root of the problem and throttled her dumbass parents.

So, while they would be calling out, "Olivia, come back here," in a completely unthreatening, "there aren't really any repercussions if you don't come back here because we're the type of parents who don't believe in really punishing our children, because we're dumbasses who want to raise good-for-nothings with a limitless sense of entitlement or even just total sociopaths, and then we seem bewildered when we end up on a nanny reality TV show," Olivia usually didn't pay much attention, and neither of the parents made an effort to go get her and keep a hold on her. They were also pretty oblivious when the baby they were holding would reach over her parent's shoulder and try to grab at the priceless, earthquake-damaged, "please don't lean on the walls" wallpaper, which was actually within her short little arm's reach. I realize little kids are into everything and it can be easy to lose track sometimes, but that's not really an excuse not to try to keep them out of anything they shouldn't be doing.

Finally, about 50 minutes into the 65-minute tour, Olivia had run ahead of the guide, and we could see her through a glass wall as she went around a corner and just kept on going ahead. At this point the mother told the father, "I'm going to go grab her hand." I would have seriously considered banging my head against the wall if it hadn't been covered in priceless wallpaper.

Somehow, Olivia got out of the house alive, when the house could so easily have added a brand new ghost to its collection. Darwin must have been busy elsewhere.

I really should have put something about "regular child-free tours" in the suggestion box in the gift shop. Instead I bought Brad a snow-globe magnet (I seriously doubt it has actually snowed on the house itself more than about half a dozen times in 125 years) for feeding the fuzzies in my absence. Then I walked back to the catch the same bus that had gotten me there so I could go further west to the San Jose Kinokuniya. I had to wait forever for the bus, and this stop didn't have a bench. Whine.

to be continued some more....

Riding the Rails: Day 2 A Kinda Big Shew

I slept like a rock and didn't wake up until 10:30. As soon as I woke up, though, I knew it: I ached. My back ached from the train and from carrying a lot of weight, particularly once we got to San Jose and I was already too tired to carry my back properly. My head ached, probably because I had not only not eaten for something like 14 hours at that point, but also because the air on the train had been dry and I probably hadn't drunk enough water to make up for it. I had decided against packing an analgesic for some dumbass reason and was regretting it. Ouch. I came to gradually. A hot shower loosened some muscles. A couple of glasses of water helped with the head.

I got ready. I put my flair on my backpack. I decided on the Martial Arts and Crafts t-shirt. I got everything I would need into my backpack and I was off.

While I had paid attention to streets on the way in the cab last night, I hadn't really noticed how the hotel was oriented with respect to the street. Admittedly, it took me about 10 minutes to get out of the parking lot, which adjoined a fitness center, another hotel, and a casino of all things, to the street. The side street the hotel was on had a sidewalk but it had been laid by some assholes who thought they were funnier than they were: it undulated from side to side like a snake.

I made it to the major cross street, which in this area was lined with Silicon Valley-corporate buildings and large empty lots. I decided to cross to the other side of the street where there were some shady trees over the sidewalk, except when I got across... there was no sidewalk. Assholes! Instead of going back and crossing the street or just walking along the grassy areas in front of the office buildings, I decided to keep going up the side street, which had lots of tech offices. And no sidewalks. There was little traffic, though, and my sometimes sketchy memory of the map was that there would be a cross street to 1st and I could get to the Karina station that way. I walked a couple of minutes. Then I really started hoping this wouldn't end up being a cul-de-sac or something. I kept walking and finally there was a regular sidewalk. I finally saw a cross street with Stop sign a little way up. Fortunately, it was a nice day. The sun was a little warm as I was moving around, but there was a cool breeze to make up for it.

I turned left in the direction 1st should be in. While I have a serious knack for getting lost, because I have a lousy internal sense of direction, I have apparently never managed to get permanently lost yet. And, in fact, I did get to 1st. Except I was not on Karina and I realized I had probably gone past it, but I wasn't sure. I just couldn't see a rail platform in either direction, although I could see the tracks going down the middle of the road. That at least was a good sign.

I walked several more long blocks, past ebay and finally saw a platform. Ok, something I've noticed about San Jose is that the crossing lights at major intersections seem to make the most annoying bird-like electronic chirping noises. It had seriously startled me the night before when I was trying to figure out how to get to my hotel. At the intersection I now found myself at, of the three crossing light chirps I heard, they all seemed to be different pitches, all annoying. I mean, it's a good idea, but the actual sound they used in their implementation was just too annoying. Anyway, this was actually the Component station, which means I had overshot Karina by over half a mile. Oh, well. The bag wasn't that heavy and it's not like I couldn't use the exercise. I bought my ticket from the machine, which required practically putting my nose against the screen as the sun was shining directly on it, making it almost unreadable. My train showed several minutes later.

I got off at the Great America station, which in my through-a-fun-house-mirror memory I had thought was several blocks from the convention center. (In my defense, one of the muy annoying things about Google maps is that, when I type "Santa Clara Convention Center," it doesn't show the damned center. It shows all the hotels in its database that match that or mention their proximity on their web sites. I had to guess the convention center's actual location based on address, which is not always easy to do.) I saw this woman in front of me with Ravelry pins on her KCRW messenger bag (oddly like the one I have had from years, except not -- I got mine the first year they offered it. This was probably from a subsequent year) and asked, "Do you know where you're going?" "Yes, right over here." Oh. We were literally directly in front of the convention center entrance. If I had looked up instead of at her bag, I would have seen the sign.

Anyway, into the show's market. I had bought my ticket online and printed out the barcode ticket. Those things are becoming ubiquitous. In I went! I had brought a specific list of projects I needed to find yarn for, and so my eyes scanned mostly for that. The first booth where I purchased something was actual by an importer of Japanese kimono and fabric. My mother loves Japanese fabric and her birthday is coming up, so hopefully she can incorporate it into her quilting. Birthday present, check!

The next purchase was of beautiful hand-made glass buttons I think will go nicely with a cardigan I am going to start Any Day Now.

Now, while I had decided to limit the yarn shopping as much as possible to specific projects, I hadn't really considered the fact that I would see new patterns I wanted. The next purchase was for a nice short-sleeved cardigan with lacy placket. I often don't buy the yarn a pattern is designed for, but I was at the yarn company's booth and one of the suggested yarns was both very pretty and inexpensive.

I eventually stumbled onto WEBS' booth. I love WEBS. I've ordered from them often, both because they have a very large selection, give excellent discounts if you, um, spend enough, um, money, and get some great close-out yarns, which, while not subject to further discounts, are already good deals. They're located in New Hampshire, so obviously they could only bring a small subset of their selection, but that was enough for me. I got some closeout, self-striping Noro Matsuri for one an entrelac sweater I've been trying to find yarn for for ages, and some of WEBS' own line of wool for a felted bag. The woman at the cash register next to me was 11 cents short of the amount needed for the next discount level. "Well, can I just give you 11 cents?" "Oh, I'll just give you the discount! Don't worry about it." Aw, they're nice, too.

One of the things I had been looking for was some self-striping laceweight yarn, preferably a fuzzy mohair type, for the pattern on the cover of this Japanese book I had gotten the last time I was Kinokuniya. I am honestly not exactly sure about what kind of yarn/fiber type/exact weight the recommended yarn is, because the book is, well, in Japanese, and it would be a Japanese brand anyway. (Noro is one of the few Japanese yarn makers that has widespread American distribution.) I found a beautiful, soft, laceweight merino wool yarn, which, while not a fuzzy mohair, was self-striping. It may make the cardigan seem a little airier than the sample, but I'm hoping it will work.

The last thing I got was a pretty polymer clay barrette. I keep losing barrettes. I strongly suspect when I finally move, I will find where the cats have hidden them. Seriously.

At some point after a couple hours, I had left the hall to get a refreshment and put down my bags. I shared a table with two separate groups of people, as the snack area was pretty crowded. One woman, who otherwise looked like a perfectly respectable 50-something lady, whipped out her piggie and holstein cow finger puppets. I guess she takes them around with her because she gets lonely. (Well, in that silly, metaphorical way.) I told her about the Obama and McCain puppets and the turkey puppet I had made. Then I suddenly recalled a pair of gloves I had had as a child. They were knitted in bright primary colors, and each finger was a different color with a little face on the end! I seem to recall they also had little tufts of hair! I think the finger puppet lady and I got the same gleam in our eyes at the same time. Now to find a simple glove pattern, ripe for faces and hair to be embroidered on the finger tips.

It was 5 now and I had made the rounds many times and wasn't seeing anything new to catch my eye. And I was tired. I had planned to meet an on-again-off-again friend I hadn't talked to for a long time, but I had told him I would probably stay until 6, but I called him and he said he could head out now.

After we had dinner and he dropped me off at my hotel, I took out all the stuff.

Yes, that is a box of Girl Scout cookies. They were, um, girling the coat/bag check booth.

Spread out on the floor, I realized I didn't actually buy as much as it had seemed like, and I was rather pleased with both what I did and did not buy. I got yarn for two hard-to-shop for projects, and found another pattern and already got affordable but suitable yarn for it. I brought one of those travel Space Bags with me, and I might be able to fit most if not all into my suitcase after squashing it down. And, um, unzipping the expansion section of the suitcase.

All in all, the show's selection wasn't quite what I expected. There were a lot of small companies bringing their own hand-spun and -dyed yarns. Such a statement is fightin' talk to some yarnies, but I'm just not that big on those yarns. They usually are mostly wool, which, while I don't go out of my way to avoid, do try to find alternatives. Also, with the price of hand-made yarn, sweater quantities cost more than I would usually like to pay, and I have more than enough small quantity yarns in my stash that are suitable for scarves (which I make few of) and other small projects.

That said, I wasn't disappointed with the show at all. I had a really good time, and I'm pleased with what I ended up with. I really enjoyed talking to the people there. I got to see and touch a lot of yarns I had only ever seen online, and even if I didn't buy them there, if a project comes to mind that they click with, I can order them knowing what I'm getting. It was a very nice afternoon.

After I got back to the hotel and settled down, I drew a hot bath. Ahhhhhh....

Riding the Rails: Amtrak Better Know the Way to San Jose

I'm getting ready to take my first non-family-generally-emergency-related trip in over 18 months this week. Yay!

Ostensibly, I'm going up to the San Jose area to check out Stitches West 2009, but that's just an excuse to go somewhere. Firstly, I decided to take the Amtrak Coast Starlight route. It runs from Union Station up to Seattle, with a convenient stop in San Jose. I'd never actually taken Amtrak further than Santa Barbara, and that was a long time ago. Ok, the trip is about 10 hours long each way, but I'll bring my laptop and some DVDs and some books and those multiple unread issues of Scientific American I have piled up. And, according to the Amtrak page,

The scenery along the Coast Starlight route is unsurpassed. The dramatic snow-covered peaks of the Cascade Range and Mount Shasta, lush forests, fertile valleys and long stretches of Pacific Ocean shoreline provide a stunning backdrop for your journey.

So I will probably take lots of blurry pictures from the train.

The San Jose area has what looks like a very convenient system of light rail. I made sure to book a hotel near a rail stop, so I can take the light rail from the Amtrak station up to the hotel, and then take the same line to a stop near the Santa Clara Convention Center, where the Stitches show is taking place.

I get in Thursday night, and I'll check out the show Friday. I haven't decided if I'm going to wear my "Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts" t-shirt or my "I Knit So I Do Not Kill People" shirt (in pink). I will, of course, pack both. I will also carry my newly-finished kitty back pack.¹

Saturday, assuming I can drag my butt out of bed after all that overwhelming excitement, I'm thinking about checking out the Winchester Mystery House, also located in San Jose, although it looks like that will require a bus in addition to the rail. After that, I may check out the San Jose Kinokuniya location, which looks to have a larger selection than the Los Angeles store. The San Francisco store is supposed to be huge, but at over 40 miles from the hotel, it would involve three different rail services and at least one bus. I'm not sure I'm up to that much adventure! Then, on Sunday, it's back down to Union Station.

And I will of course be blogging about it the whole way!

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¹Slightly modified version of the "Punk Rock Backpack" by Heather Barnes.

Knittin' Crap: Kinokuniya Score!

As I mentioned in today's Metro Journal, I went back to Kinokuniya Bookstore in Little Tokyo today. Last time I was there, I got some excellent books. I think today's were even more excellent. I saw such great stuff, I thought I would pass out. Then I realized I probably needed to get something in my stomach.



(Yes, the flash on my camera is very annoying.)

But the pièce de résistance... a Nekobasu coin purse!

Metro Journal: Feb 6 Wet

I had a dentist appointment in the morning, and they had plumbers to come do work in my building most of the day, so I figured I would just spend as much of the day as far from my apartment as possible. First I went to the post office, where I finally mailed the belated Xmas gifts for my mother and Max (The Artist Formerly Known As Colleen. Don't ask, because then I'd have to ask.)



Hint: if you're going to knit a sweater for your mother for Xmas, don't start on the 20th of December, unless you plan to give it to her for Xmas the following year. Or over a month late, anyway.

I knew enough to bring an umbrella, although it wasn't raining while I was walking to the post office. That was good, since I was carrying the two packages. But a minute after I went out to wait for the bus, it started drizzling, and within a minute was raining in earnest. That would have been fine, except the wind was blowing, so the rain was coming at an angle. I had my Doc Martens on, which do a pretty good job of keeping my feet dry, but my jeans below the knee got soaked.¹

I took the 780, bought a Day Pass as I no longer get monthly passes at work, and got off the bus at Brand. It was still over 1½ hours until my appointment, so I went to a coffee shop, got a chai, and read my book awhile, and watched the rain. I got antsy after about an hour, so I went outside. I had planned to take a Beeline up to the cross street for the dentist's office, but the next one wasn't going to come for about 15 minutes. (Glendale had just put in new shelters around the Galleria, and this one even had an LED sign telling you the Beeline schedule for buses for that stop.) I ended up walking the half mile or so to the dentist's. It was only sort of drizzling and I was antsy.² I got there about half an hour early, just prepared to wait, but they'd had a cancellation and could see me immediately. Bonus! So they did the deep steam-cleaning or something.

After that, I walked all the way back to Brand and Broadway to catch the 794 to go downtown. I had to run the last half block to catch one, so I wouldn't have to wait another 20 or so minutes. They only added this line last June, and it doesn't run on weekends, so I had never taken it before.

I got off at Hill and 1st, then walked the half mile or so to Little Tokyo to hit Kinokuniya Bookstore again. I'd been there last October, but after joining the Japanese Knitting and Crochet group on Ravelry, I had seen some more books I wanted to look for.

It had stopped raining again, but the sky was still really overcast. I tried to take a picture of Japanese tourists taking a picture of the faux signpost to Los Angeles' Sister Cities, but my crappy phone camera didn't do a good job from across the street.

After scoring big at Kinokuniya³, I got a cup of coffee and loitered around the shopping center a bit. It's on a block-long street named Astronaut Ellison Onizuka St, after the Japanese-American astronaut who died in the Challenger explosion. They have a statue of the Challenger dedicated to him in the small plaza.

I walked back up (and I mean up as in "uphill") 1st to Hill. The Civic Center Red Line station is at the same corner where I got off the 794. To kill more time, I figured I would take the Red Line to Union Station, get on the Gold Line to Pasadena, and take the 780 west to my regular stop. From the station entrance, you can see the top of the Walt Disney Concert Hall off in the distance, but as the hall is the same steel grey as the sky was, you can't really make it out in my picture. It's a pretty mural, though.

The smell as you descend into the actual station grows rather, um, unwelcoming. The station itself is very non-descript, unlike, say, the Vine Red Line Station, with its film-equipment motif, or the Chinatown Gold Line Station with its faux pagoda roof and dragon statues.

Some rather skanky guy on the train kept staring at me. I was grateful that he didn't approach, but I had to wonder why all the guys who come on to me on public transportation end up being skanky. I am not skanky. I don't think I have clothes that could even put me in the neighborhood of skanky, unless I tried to wedge myself into stuff I was wearing 16 years ago. I mean, the label may say it's the same size as I wear now, but my ass begs to differ.⁴

Union Station was the next (and last) stop, so I got off and went to the Gold Line. The next train was waiting, although it didn't leave for several more minutes. I called my mother and told her Spoon seemed to like yarn with mohair content, so maybe I should get him a pet goat.

I forgot there was the stupid Fair Oaks stop, so I got off at the Del Mar Station and had to hoof it about half a mile uphill on Arroyo to Colorado. At least it still wasn't raining. I had to walk a few blocks to the next 780 stop, though, and I just missed the bus. I decided to keep walking, half window shopping, half thinking there was another stop not too far. I ended up walking way uphill, past the Norton Simon, over the 210, all the way to Orange Grove. Fortunately a 780 showed up about 2 minutes later.

After I got off the 780 and had started walking home, it started to rain again. Oh, well. I noticed that the fabric was no longer anchored on one of the umbrella spokes, and there was a small hole on top, no doubt the source of occasional drops I had been feeling. My mother had gotten it as swag at a conference, which means it had an embarrassing logo, so for cheap swag, it did last a couple years in the desert.

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¹ They didn't even dry out until I got home 6 hours later and actually hung them over my towel warmer for awhile.
² Not having somewhere to be every day has started giving me cabin fever.
³ See separate post.
⁴ It's called vanity sizing.

Knittin' Crap: Amigurumi Groovy Fun Fun Fun!

So here's the story of why I wanted to visit the Japanese bookstore, as mentioned in today's Metro Journal post.

There are apparently some amazing and unique Japanese knitting stitch books, and the beauty of such things is that the stitches are graphed. So as long as one has the key to the graph, one does not really need to read kanji or hiragana or katakana (not that I can tell the difference). And isn't it nice of them to use Arabic numerals?

Anyways, as these books are moderately expensive imports, I wanted to see one in person before buying, so I finally got around to googling about them and came across this link, and I smacked myself on the forehead going, "You live 10 miles from Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, dumbass!"

So I went to Kinokuniya in Little Tokyo (see today's Metro Journal entry for the story of getting there). They had all kinds of wonderful amigurumi books, including a Hello Kitty one! (Sheesh, I paid much less than that site, but they have the most pictures of it.) In the basket. I also got a Japanese quilt magazine for my mother. It has a pull-out pattern, but I don't know enough about quilting to know if it's usable. It had some very pretty pictures, even if she can't use the patterns.

What I couldn't find were the knitting stitch books. Maybe they were out. I had forgotten to write down the ISBN numbers, but I will do that next time. I got enough to keep me busy. Following some of the amigurumi patterns will take guesswork, while others would require minor miracles. Most of the Hello Kitty looks vaguely straightforward, or will leave me at least knowing the kanji/katakana/whatever characters for body parts, but it's Hello Kitty or bust!