Just came across Theresa's "Personal Yarns" questions. Sure, I'll answer!

1. Where were you born? What do you know about your own birth? (time, circumstance, etc...)
I was born in Huntington, NY - out on Long Island. June 3rd was a hot day that year, and there was apparently a tremendous thunderstorm while I was being born at 11:19 pm (according to my birth certificate). Mom really wanted a girl (I have an older brother) so being superstitious, she wore only pink to the hospital.

2. Do you have a baby picture you can put onto your weblog? If not, tell us what you looked like as a baby.
Look that way -------> I'm not sure how old I was there, but my Mom says this is her favorite baby picture of me. I have to admit I think it's damn cute, too. There's also these two below. First from best friend Diana's birthday party, and the second with Diana, her brother Greg, my brother Larry (the one tossing the baseball up) and Greg and Diana's mother Georgia, who died in 1995. I figured you would all enjoy the giggle from the clothes and the fact that my pasty white face practically glows compared to the others!






3. What kind of a baby or toddler were you according to the people who were around when you were young?
As an infant, they called me "little miss sunshine" because I was so well-tempered. Mom would come into my room in the morning and find me gurgling happily in the crib. I am not making this up. I am also not quite as cheery in the mornings these days! I was a funny little kid, who taught myself to read secretly at the age of four. At pre-school they thought Mom and Dad did it, and Mom and Dad thought it happened at pre-school. Hehehe. I'm still sort of like that - I tend to prefer to present people with the finished product rather than let them share the progress (particularly the setbacks.) Knitting seems to be the exception.

4. Know any cute baby-related quotes?
Something about how the mountain lion got its spots, which makes no sense since mountain lions don't have spots. My favorite quote isn't mine, though. When I was on the way, my parents went to look at a crib that someone was selling, and they took my four-year-old brother. In the middle of these strangers' living room, my brother smiled sweetly and said "I hate you Mommy!" and giggled. Of course he had no idea what he was saying, but imagine how mortifying it was?! Hmm. I know I must have said many cute things as a child. I will have to check with Mom later and get back to you.

Oh happy day! It's the beginning of my four-day weekend! The past week was so exhausting that this long weekend is even more precious than it would normally be. I stayed up too late last night and couldn't sleep in this morning, but I just don't care because it's sunny and beautiful and I don't have to work until Tuesday.

Got up to the armhole shaping last night on Ginger, and now I am in a quandary over how to proceed. The directions are confusing me. I posted to the ever-helpful knitting bloggers list, so hopefully I will get assistance soon. If anyone reading is a big Rowan fan and wants to know what's getting me stuck, let me know and I'll email you, since I don't want to bore everyone with posting it all here.

The plan this morning is to do a little cleaning-up around here, maybe laundry, a trip to the greenmarket. Later I am going shopping with my next-door neighbor Adrienne. We're hitting Old Navy with my 20% off coupon so we can get lots of cute little summery things without breaking the bank. Yay! I need to stock up on plain white tees, since I seem to have spilled soy sauce, tomato sauce or some unidentified substance on at least half of the ones I already own.

Not much else to say at the moment. So I suppose I won't!

Phew! That was a crazy morning. No internet access until around noon, and it didn't matter because I was slammed with work right up until I ran out the door to have lunch with Ms. Chunky! We had a lovely sojourn on the steps of the Morgan Library, enjoying the (finally!) spring weather.

Now I am unmotivated to do anything but ought to turn to those notes from yesterday's symposium. Time to make my unedited notes into an informative summary. Yipes. Maybe I won't have to work on it too long. My boss is basically waiting on pins and needles for his boss to leave, so he can leave, and in turn, I can leave! I am sending "go home" thoughts Bernie's way as we speak...

Since I had SO many extra-nice comments while I was gone (thanks, guys!) that I figured I'd just post an update. I'm back from Philly, and I decided on the Ginger tank for the train. And yes, Jackie, my plan is to wear it as a twin set. Ginger and Honey seem to go together. The train rides were very comfy and convenient - Amtrak has improved since I last took the train anywhere (4-5 years I guess). I got this much done:



The conference itself was interesting but very tedious, and I took about 15 pages of notes on my colleagues laptop, which I have to turn into a summary tomorrow. Fun fun fun. I'd rather be knitting.

OK, where is that boy? He went to some industry cocktail party and was going to have left 10 minutes ago. I am starving! FEED MEEE!

Ended up staying far later than I had planned at Stitch-n-Bitch last night. Jackie, Marney and Carolyn are absolutely evil! Though it wasn't that tough to get me to stay once I realized that I didn't actually have to get up early this morning. Usually I get up at 7:15 to be at the office at 9, but today I don't have to go in before going to Philly, and I'm meeting my colleague at Penn Station around 10:45. So, I didn't get home until 11 and didn't actually get to bed until after midnight.

Unfortunately, the garbage truck was really loud this morning and I was up at 7 anyway. Argh! I seem to be waking up more from street noise lately, and I don't know if it's just that there's more noise or I am sleeping less soundly. I tend to be a light sleeper anyway, so the latter would not be good news.

But, making the best of a bad situation, I finished up the top of the strawberry cap I started last night. This is going to be for Tracy's new baby girl, born yesterday. I'm not certain about her name just yet, but it may be Lily.



The cap is from the Anne Norling pattern, using Tahki Cotton Classic. When I left last night I was up to the beginning of the top leaves, so you can see this works up very quickly. Everyone at Stitch-n-Bitch kept telling me how cute it is, and since I didn't actually design the pattern or anything, I feel OK agreeing. I love these little fruit caps and seem to not tire of knitting them.

Since I was in photo mode, I also took a snap of the finished Honey cardigan. It's tough to see the detail along the raglan edges, so maybe I will get a better shot later. Wore it to work last Friday and got some compliments, followed by astonishment when I said I'd knit it myself. And made the button out of Sculpey. :-)



Now here comes silliness: I am so close to finishing the Mom sweater sleeve that I know I would finish it in the first hour of my train ride, and have nothing for the rest, or the way home. So obviously I should start something new from my WIM list. It will either be the Ginger tank in the same Summer Tweed as the cardie, or the Flame tank in this pretty black sparkly yarn I picked up a few months ago. You'll just have to wait anxiously to find out which it is!

Hmm, the case of the disappearing blog has returned. Let's try posting and see if it fixes it again!

We've finally gotten somewhere on that sleeve. I finished all the increases last night while talking to Paul, who came over to watch the "Ally McBeal" series finale. Now, I loved that show the first two seasons, and haven't watched it in about three years, since it just got too annoyingly stupid for me. But I hadn't seen Paul in a while and was curious about the show's end, so I watched. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was lamer than the "X-Files" finale. When Ally was saying goodbye to all at the end, Paul was joking around saying "And I'll miss you, Cowardly Lion, and you Mr. Scarecrow" and then Ally gets to the Biscuit at the end of the line and says "I'll miss you the most, Scarecrow." We nearly fell off the sofa. Dialogue should never be that predictable!

Now my dilemma is I don't think I have enough yarn with me to finish the sleeve, but I was planning on going to the gym, then Stitch-n-Bitch tonight, which doesn't really leave enough time to stop at home. Hmmm. Maybe I'll just take it as a sign - I said I didn't want to stay too late tonight, so when I run out, I should leave. Or I could skip the gym and run home for yarn. Or I could buy new yarn at Downtown Yarns and start a new project.

Actually, that third choice is the most likely option. Leanne's sister Tracy is having her baby today (she's a tiny little persona and this is her 3rd C-section, this time they decided to schedule it in advance) and since I am no way no how going to finish those baby blocks in time, I am going to make it a little strawberry cap, and some co-ordinating booties and/or bib. It's already on my list to buy the stuff tonight. Hey, if anyone has the Ann Norling fruit cap pattern on them, can you tell me what the gauge is and how many stitches to cast on for the newborn size? Mine is somewhere at home, but I couldn't find it last night.

Wow, is it Monday already? I suppose it is. I also suppose it is March, and that's why I am wearing this turtleneck? What is up with the weather? 95 degrees in April, then 48 in May.

I achieved a goal yesterday at the 9th Avenue Food Fair: I tasted a deep-fried oreo cookie! I have been wanting one ever since reading about them on Jenny's blog. If you've never tried them - yum! Take an oreo cookie, dip it into funnel cake batter, then drop it in hot oil. A lovely experience, captured in pixels (doesn't quite have the ring as "caught on film," eh?):





In addition to the oreo bliss, Ryan and I had the fun of running into Jackie and Marney along the way! I realized too late that we should have taken a picture, but the camera was in the bag, forgotten, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Working backwards on the weekend, I managed to finish the first sleeve of Mom's sweater, and we spent a few hours at the MoMA. That almost didn't happen, as when we got the museum, there were about 300 people on line outside to buy tickets. We walked into the lobby to assess the situation, and when we looked through the glass, we saw Carla standing outside. Turns out she has a friend at the museum, so she wandered in, got us free tickets, and we sauntered past the line. Oh I love it when things like that happen! It was terribly crowded inside, so we didn't stay too long, but it was nice to see some of the Richter exhibit as well as the "greatest hits" from the permanent collection before it all moves to Queens for three years.

OK, I am all over the place chronologically, but jumping back to Sunday night, I was pretty disappointed in the finale of "The X-Files." It gave a good rundown of the story and some answers and clarifications, but I felt the drama and emotion were sorely lacking and the direction was really flat. A letdown for me, since I have been a big fan for years, and have seen every episode, even had most on tape until a season or two ago. I guess it really was just time for it to end. I know Chris Carter has talked about going the "Star Trek" route and doing movies from here on in, but I don't know if I see that happening, or if they'd even be compelling at this point. He really messed with the story too much in the past two seasons, and got away from the original feeling of the show. It pains me to say that. There was a time when I loved the show so much I couldn't bear any criticism of it at all.

Well, I've bent your ears (eyes?) long enough here. I suppose I will go do some work!