Long weekends are good

Thursday was my birthday. I slept in. I puttered about the house for a bit, spun a little bit on my spindle. Just generally took my time. Then I went to Frogs where I'd had a gift certificate for a hot tub and an hour long massage. I'd been carrying this gift certificate around with me for the last year and a half. I am very glad I had saved it. Wow, was it lovely!

Then the Boo and I just kind of hung out at my house for a while - he made pizza for dinner for me. So it was just the two of us. My mom called, my daughter called, my sister called. I saw my brother on my way back from Frogs. He got me an 1888 Morgan Silver Dollar for my birthday. I'd had one as a kid - but lost it when I was about 12. I'd decided that I should carry it around as a good luck charm. I sure am glad that I've learned a thing or two since I was 12! Steve found it for me again on E-bay... aren't the internets great?

I decided that I'd really like to spend some time with my boyfriend on my b-day. I knew he was working ... Bartending at a place in Alameda. So I got myself all prettified and left my house. Isn't it funny how much better you feel about things when you do your hair, and your makeup and don a pretty dress?

I stopped off at my work to pick up my new camera chip - I'd asked the warehouse guy to just leave it on my desk for me. I got to work, no package on my desk. Sigh... I looked around for a bit - checking various drawers, etc... no where! I checked the tracking info and sure enough it had been delivered, just nowhere to be found! It was getting late by that time so I went off to Alameda.

It was quiet at the bar when I got there. It was really nice seeing my guy in action behind the bar. I'd never actually seen him bartend before. It's not his regular thing anymore. He was a bartender for years, but that was a while ago. Right now he's just doing a favor for a good friend of his, who just sold this place, it's in escrow right now - and there's just a lot of drama going on behind it all with the regular employees being worried about what's going to happen when the place changes hands. So my BBE is keeping an eye on the place for his friend. Going in around 10 in the morning to get everything ready, and then hanging out until closing most nights. Closing time around here is 2am, so he's been frazzled, and is a bit exhausted these days.

I've been hanging out with him since Thursday night - at the bar, or the owners house across the street. But I was able to do a bit of my own stuff... I brought my socks in progress, almost done with the gusset decreases. Just a plain vanilla 2x2 rib sock - with a fairly short cuff - nothing fancy. This is still sock #1.

I've been able to get a fair amount of progress on my spindling project done.

Icarus is still on hold. I need some quiet time and space to try to drop down to my rookie mistake and fix it. I'm going to try anyway - I figure if I can't make it work, I can still always rip out all those rows.

I also started this... It's basically the start of a top that I designed some time ago for my handspun wool. I've been wanting to do it again in a more summery yarn. But I'm also not sure if I want to try to submit the design for publication - so haven't shown any pictures of it yet.

It's probably not going to get much further than this. I'm not liking the garter stitch with the yarn. But it kept my hands busy last night. I had a cute little gal come up to me last night to say that where she is from in Estonia, she is always seeing people knit. But she had never seen anyone knitting in a bar before. She thought I was very fast - I knit with a modified throw style - more of a lever action really, and when my fingers are in automatic pilot I can really crank it out. I switched to Continental - which I'm not very fast with - and she said that was more how she was used to seeing people knit.

It's been so wonderful to actually see my boyfriend, and even spend some time with him. I'm used to seeing him just about every night. This work that he's been doing has meant that he's been far away, staying in Alameda last week. Before he was not getting home until the very wee hours for the last couple of weeks. That's been hard. He feels awful that I haven't had much fun this weekend - but I understand the circumstances right now - and while I can't say that I'm not disappointed, I can say that I understand. I was able to help him get the books together for the accountant as well - on my day off - but I'm glad I was able to help.

It's also Fairfax Festival this weekend, which I am planning on checking out tomorrow. Basically it's a town party, with vendors selling arts and crafts. I want to get some more little silver rings for stitch markers, and there's live music all day long. That will be tons of fun - it's just so nice that the town puts on a big bash every year for my birthday. The BBE will be done for a bit this evening, and will be able to get home, and take a couple of day off!! So Whoo hoo.

Oh, and I stopped off by the office on my way back home and found my camera chip!! It was in the warehouse (which was locked Thursday night). Plenty of storage now! I've been working with the 16mb chip that my camera came with for over a year now. I like my camera, I'm happy with the pics it takes - but having to stop taking pictures because the card was full was decidedly a nuisance.