k-brow: mlk weekend

Nothing like a 3-day weekend. Nothing like it for long sleeps, late nights, lots of knitting, and damn little else, unless you count the Saturday afternoon when Acornbud and I took Chinatown by storm. Dim sum, pre-Chinese New Year festivities, and some produce shopping ruled the day. We discovered a guy extracting juice from a big pile of cut up sugarcane stalks (it looks like bamboo) and bought a cup to try. Delicious! Sweet, but not sickeningly so, and grassy tasting; the perfect cooler. Except we were too hot and sleepy to do anything but leave Chinatown at that point and go off to our respective naps in Much Cooler Nuuanu. Really, I think Nuuanu has made me into a big sissy about the heat. I go downhill, and I notice it immediately; it's 10 degrees warmer. Not usually a nicer shade of warm, either, except earlier this year, when I was going downhill in order to see some sunshine; sometimes Nuuanu's rainy season can get a bit much.

Knitting lace proceeds apace. I thought I'd have that Forest Canopy shawl finished by now, but it marches on. The rows get longer, I get slower to finish them,
and the whole thing looks like, in Opal's words, " big pile of ass." She assures me that this is the nature of lace and that blocking will fix everything. I'm a believer, but right now the whole thing is going in slo-mo, and my mind is moving ahead to more instantaneously gratifying knits. The yarn is pretty though, and I'm in the homestretch; I just didn't think it would be such a long stretch...

The shawl:

The yarn:

To get me though meetings, and knitting on the fly, I have arranged another project, the Feel Good scarf, in some rainbow-y Noro Silk Garden that had been marinating in stash since I moved here. This is a simple rib scarf, k2, p2 in front, on back all purls. This scarf needs blocking, too, as knitting Silk Garden can sometimes be like knitting string, and the sides are curling like crazy. A good soak and a date with my pins will open it up and make it behave, and meanwhile, I'm in love with the colors. It's meant for a friend's birthday, but if I lived in a cooler climate, I'd keep it for myself, and wear it whenever I needed a lift.


In other news, my project of yoga class twice weekly continues. I'm calling it Death By Vinyasa, though in truth, it's getting easier each time I go. Because I spend so much time staring at my own feet, I decided a pedicure was in order. This morning has been devoted to the self-pedicure, and the polishing of the nails in a color called "Jiggy" by Creative Nail Designs. Nice yogic color, no? All serene and violety. Om.Hopefully it will inspire me to hold poses longer.