back at the ranch, happy MLK day

chica missed me while i was at TNNA, i can tell. she even ordered up a hum-dinger of a sunset

and cooked a nice dinner for my return

(ok, kim helped her a little with the lemon fettucine and shrimp).

the weekend downtown was amazing; i got to spend many hours with rosemary, janel, abby, and others talking shop, comparing notes, browsing yarny products, and having fun. i also got to meet many industry people i admire greatly; i have so much to say about it all that i’ll write it up in a post tomorrow focused just on TNNA.

for today i need to backtrack a bit to friday (which seems like weeks ago, now), when kim, david, and i spent the better part of the day exploring balboa park and some of the museums and architectural wonders within it.

we started at the organ pavilion, a beautiful outdoor venue for small concerts, built with an eye toward the fanciful.

the beige-on-white coloring of the buildings and their decorative parts, along with the very formal trimming of the landscaping give them a beautifully pristine appearance in the bright sun.

after that we moved on to the museum of man which has an even more over-the-top facade, with colorful tile roofing as well. the complex combinations of european motifs echo wonderfully the incan treasures just inside in the lower-floor exhibit hall

one flowing into the other—it’s a wonderful way to link one world to the next and to continue the thread from outdoors in.

once inside, david wandered off among the totems while kim and i became caught up in an exhibit about ancient brain surgeries

some of the skulls had as many as seven holes where surgeries had been performed and successfully healed—we had no idea. on the right above is an example of a successfully-healed surgery—mind you, there is no indication if it fixed the problem, but the grown-in edges do show that the person recovered from it and the bone closed in. the one on the left with the sharp edges shows unhealed bone, an indication that the patient died. and they had dozens more examples—fascinating.

next we wandered down through some covered walkways that impressed me with their formal symmetry and simplicity

and accented with beautiful statuary

then on to the less formal, but equally captivating conservatory pavilion. at home, that would mean a glass building that maximizes the sun

but here in san diego, it’s an airy space enclosed by slatted wood to make the most of the shade and provide a quiet respite from the sun

we looked at tropical plants and scented geraniums of all types

as well as stalking cute guys in the wild

we wandered some more, looking at art and people watching, then headed off once again to saffron for lunch at david’s request (i’m so pumped that he’s turned on by the thai food here).

after a terrific lunch once again, we took a walk along the embarcadero and kim and david dropped me at the convention center to start my weekend at TNNA. i’ll tell you all about that tomorrow.

today, i want to show you the knitting i got done

the shawl is growing—i worked on it after i got home last night while we watched a movie. let me just say, the yarn? is to die for. see that little halo of softness all around the surface . . . it really does feel that good, too.

i started the second bougainvillea sock and worked on that while chatting with people at the convention

and i have a few modeling shots of the first sock, which i finished the other day

that’s the heel, with its trail of leafy laciness down the back

here’s a side view showing the arch area and side ribbing

and this is the front view. i’m pretty happy with these . . they’re fancy and fun to knit (really fun to knit actually). and i love the yarn—dye dreams dreams sox, which is a new yarn that will be debuted in the four seasons sock club kits.

ok, we are heading off to the beach today for some bike riding with kade an sam, who are off from school for the holiday. we’re going to take lots of pix for all you fans of the sun who have been requesting them. and hopefully, the boys will help me think of a good thread for a story about it all.

see you later—i’ll be back tonight with more (the boys are chomping at the bit here, so i’m not even going to proofread).