Life with Jiggity as I've known it has come to an end.

He bought Guitar Hero.

Pix Courtesy of Jigs

With this sum, I could pay off a very small percentage of my student loans! WEE!

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Patty Griffin Rocked the House...

...this evening at the Mountain Winery. She played all the faves, save for "Mary". Spice would have enjoyed hearing "Rain". My personal favorite songs of the evening were the upbeat ones, including "Useless Desires", "No Bad News", and "Truth No. 2" (first recoreded by the Chicks, but written by PG herself). All in all, a first rate show. No surprise, really. Patty seldom disappoints. But after a weekend floating around in a houseboat on Lake Shasta, I wasn't sure if I'd get excited.

Points for the Person Who Can Place the Quote (no fair for you to play, Jiggity)

Spider pig
Spider pig
Doin' whatever a spider pig does

Who Knew?

Wikipedia has a page about tricornes, which I was sent to after typing in "tri-cornered hat"*.

I'm glad someone pointed out that "Participants in reenactment events often don tricornes...". True enough.

Though Jiggity's hat has neither a plum nor a cockade, he likes it anyway ... and promises to wear it this weekend on our Friday-Monday getaway.

* After all the discussion of tri-cornered hats in the comments earlier, I was curious of the proper name: tri-cornered or tricorner. If Wikipedia is right, both are acceptable. In my opinion, tricorne is even better.

BAD Ballerina!

I've been really bad about going to ballet class lately. Several weeks ago I got a cold. And then I went to OAM. And then the ballet studio was on summer hiatus. And then I went to DC. With all of that, I've been away for a couple of months. And truth be told, I've been an irregular attendee since April.

And currently I'm struggling to find the desire to go back. Like tonight, there's a class at 7:30pm, but I just feel like going home and curling up with some knitting. Maybe I'll be back in the groove next week. One thing's for sure, I'm not at Adult 3 level anymore. I'm planning to start back at Adult Beginning....while some folks in my original cohort have moved on to Beginning Pointe.

Sheesh.

I'm too tall to go on pointe anyway, right?

Rapid Fire, DC Style

Hey now! I don' t have tons of time today to post, but I thought I'd give a run-down on the happenings in DC. This will be fast, so buckle your seat belts!

Wednesday 10:00pm PST - scheduled time of departure from SFO
Wednesday 11:30pm PST - actual departure from SFO
Wednesday 12:00 midnight PST - J.Po swallows Ambien
Thursday 8:20am EST - Sis.Po and Sis.Hub depart for National Airport to retrieve J.Po.
Thursday 8:30am EST - J.Po lands in Philly, having missed 2 departures to DC (the original and the one I was placed onto after I missed the connection).
Thursday 8:31am EST - J.Po calls Sis.Po at home and cell to warn them of her delay, with no response.
Thusrday 9:00am EST - Sis.Po and Sis.Hub page J.Po at National Airport to no avail and return home where a message is awaiting them on their home and cell phones explaining the situation.
Thursday 11:30am EST - J.Po finally gets on flight to National (I'm told by TOWWAS that I MUST call it National, not Reagan Airport)
Thursday 1:00pm EST - At long last, J.Po, Sis.Po, and Sis.Hub meet up.
Thursday din-din - J.Po supps with Sis.Po's department at a goodbye din-din. Everyone agrees that Sis.Po got a bum deal with this Iraq deployment thing.
Friday a.m. - J.Po learns the wonder that is the Tour de France. Sis.Hub teaches her that there is a load of strategy involved in the race. J.Po is impressed by the bleeding-butt guy who took an unfortunate spill off his bike. He was thought to be a potential contender for the win.
Friday afternoon - J.Po and team go to Mt. Vernon. J.Po is impressed by the number of poo sitings. Sheep poo, horse poo, a "dung repository" that looks much like a compost heap. J.Po purchases a tri-cornered hat for Jiggity.
Friday evening - Alsho comes to Sis.Po's house to meet up with J.Po. Sis.Po's friends from HOM (Her Alma Mater) and their two kids (ages 1.5 and 4) arrive for a visit from New Hampshire. The whole gang eats pizza and J.Po takes a liking to the 1.5-year-old. Silly face games ensue.
Friday evening, post-dinner - Alsho takes J.Po to her house, a LOVELY and RELAXING escape. J.Po bunks in the yoga room. Her blood pressures goes down and she considers staying forever. Ahh.
Saturday AM - TOWWAS comes to Alsho's to brunch with Alsho and J.Po. TOWWAS brings sausage and Alsho cooks waffles in her maker that was gifted by L.Kes and J.Po. Bellies fill to the max and food comma sets in. Mmmmm....
Saturday post-brunch - TOWWAS departs for her baby shower activities. Alsho and J.Po depart for the zoo, to meet up with Sis.Po, Sis.Hub, and her friends from HAM.
Saturday afternoon - The gang spends 5 hours at the zoo. J.Po's favorite animals are the free-roaming monkeys (baby monkeys on the backs of adult monkeys make her squeal with joy). J.Po and Alsho have ice cream for lunch. Wise choice? Yes!
Saturday evening - J.Po says goodbye to Sis.Po and Sis.Hub. Alsho and J.Po return to Alsho's house for dinner. TOWWAS joins the party, and refuses to eat cheese. No surprise. TOWWAS then entertains the crowd with her revels video. Alsho plans to go to the performance this winter. Perhaps Spice will join her?
Sunday morning 5:30am EST - Alsho (the doll that she is) drives J.Po to National for her 7:00am departure. J.Po discovers she is not booked on the flight, due to the mishap earlier in the week. She gets the last seat on the flight, but it's a center seat whereas the original was a window.
Sunday 7:00am EST- J.Po settles into her center seat and is joined by a woman and her young child. Child begins grabbing J.Po's sweater and stepping on her leg to entertain herself. The grabbing and stepping continues throughout the flight, without much intervention by mother. Perhaps a cultural difference in personal space? J.Po remembers she adores children, but not when they keep her from sleeping during the flight.
Sunday 12:20 PST - J.Po lands at SFO and Jiggity arrives to retrieve her. J.Po is glad to be home and envisions an afternoon nap.

Stupidest Thing You've Ever Done. GO!

Me: Missed my flight to DC that took off at 12:35 am THIS morning, not TOMORROW morning. (No worries, DC crowd, I just rescheduled)

(Note to future self - read itinerary carefully.)

Whew!!

I just got word that my 2pm meeting (that I was going to run) is cancelled! WHEW!!!! I can't even express the degree of my relief! I've been working in overdrive over the last week to get ready for my somewhat unexpected trip to D.C. Now I actually have the time to take a walk over lunch instead of haul my arse to the fieldsite. Ah, the little joys in life. WEE!

Project switch!

After completing the back, front and one sleeve of my FIRST EVER HAND-KNITTED SWEATER, I got bored of the yarn and pattern. So I switched projects - made a trip to the local yarnery yesterday, found some delightful variagated cotton on sale (40% off, dude), and started knitting a hat. I'm making good progress! The plan was to have something to work on during my flight to DC on Wednesday. Seems I may be done before my departure. Oops! Good thing I bought a second skein in another color.

HEALTH!!

For the next 7 weeks, I'll be doing everything this guy tells me to do. He's the latest in a long line of my PBS-inspired health kicks. I'm currently following his 8 week plan for ultimate health.

The first week involved doing lots of things I already do (eat broccoli and salmon weekly, take fish oil pills daily, walk a lot), which is making me think I live a relatively healthy life.

He did, however, advise on two key things I have not done until now: take supplements (vitamin B complex, vitamin E, vitamin D, Selenium, Calcium, and Co-Enzyme Q) and practice daily meditative breathing. The B-complex supplement is doing amazing things for my energy ... with the added bonus of turning my urine florescent yellow. The breathing is very difficult for me - because I tend to be a little ADD and I have a tough time slowing down. But it's probably the thing I could use the most!

I can't wait to see what I'm slated to do in week 2. I cheated and skimmed ahead, excited to see that I'll be increasing my fiber intake to 40 GRAMS A DAY sometime soon. That will be a true challenge. Sophist will be happy to hear that I'm taking fiber intake to a whole new level!

Pool Party!

Jiggity and I totally went to a pool party for the holiday. I haven't been invited to a pool party since the age of 12 or so.

Here's our culinary contribution:

Gettin Stitchy With It

After a couple of months off since my last stitch-related project, I've started a new venture...and this time, it's not a wedding veil and in no way related to a wedding. At all. WEE!

I've taken a turn from sewing to knitting, and I'm ready update you on my progress.

Several years ago, I treked to a local knitting convention along with a few of my stitching compatriates. We saw more than our fill of applicay-sweater-clad women diving into bins of wholesale yarn. Although I refused to take a literal yarn-oriented plunge, I did purchase several skeins of lovely organic cotton and vowed to use it to knit my very first sweater. It has since collected dust waiting for me to get enough courage and patience to begin. (And it's been about 4 years.)

With lots of inspiration from this gal (who, if my memory serves, was on that fateful trip to the convention), I started knitting 3 weeks ago. And I've already completed the front and back secitons! Granted, I'm using a really easy pattern and a relatively bulky yarn, but this is going much quicker than I thought. It's easier than I thought, too, and I've already learned 3 new techniques!

Medium Tum Tum Monkey kept getting in the way of the camera, but I managed to get some photos. Here they are:

The Bottle Lied

I totally have fish burps this morning.

I think I might get some coffee to mask the taste. Ick.

At Least I'll Finally Pay D.C. a Visit....

After years of telling the DC area crowd that I'm due for a visit, the war gave me the motivation I've needed. I'll be kickin it, DC style, from July 12th through July 15th - with 2 days of familial goodbyes and one day of chillin' (or boilin', as the case may be).

With an estimated one day to spend in ye olde capitol city, what do you recommend I see? (TOWWAS is already on the list, if she's willing.)

Good Times with Cocoa

So it seems L.Kes and B.Kes are taking in all the Bay Area sites before fleeing for the MW. And Jiggity and I are taking advantage of their energy and organizing efforts. We're also trying to spend as much time as possible with them before they leave us (sad).

Yesterday's adventure included a trip to the Scharffen Berger Chocolate "factory" (a relatively small building, really) and a sake factory (also, quite small).

Jigs and I were going to phone Sophist to see about some din-din plans, but I got a little stomach ailment, probably from all the intense chocolate washed down with several cups of sake, so we went home instead. Sorry, Sophist.

We partook in a lovely brunch before the festivities. Pics for your viewing pleasure: