Rachael

Well, mostly better. Fever still lingers a bit, but only in that drive you crazy am-I-feverish-or-not kind of way. Not enough to cramp my style, or prevent me from going to work tonight, although I slept almost thirteen hours last night and just got up from a three hour nap this afternoon.  Well prepared for a night of sitting on my ass, I think.

So I have nothing interesting to say, having done nothing in the past three days. So I’ll give you a couple of pics of the most interesting things around me recently (sadly, La’s been super-duper busy, so I’ve been amusing myself with movies and cats and spinning).

How I spent last night:

And yes, that ball of wool is bigger than Adah. She weighs more, though. It’s destined to be Debbie Bliss’s Lara, I think, if the gauge comes out. Just what I need. Another sweater in California. But at least the nice thing is I seldom wear a coat here, just sweaters at night, so I actually get use out of them….

And it’s spinning up (two-ply) into this:

It’s rather uneven, and I’m really struggling with it. It’s a stubborn Rambouillet from A Touch of Twist out of Schenectady, obtained in Maryland. Drafting more is helping, but it’s still aggressive and jumpy. I think I’d gotten used to the nice merinos and this is hard for me. But it’s a good challenge.

Also, I just saw this in my living room. I love my house. (And my Treo, for taking the picture. Not bad for a phone, no?)

Yes, I took that last wee post down. It felt passive-aggressive, and I hate being that, although I’ve been known to be good at it.

Still sick. Stomach flu with fever, and I thought I was getting better this morning, but as the day wears achingly slowly on, I feel worse, so I’m staying close to the bed, drinking a lot of fluids. And sleeping a lot.

I’m never sick. Unless I have something terrifically big, like that pneumonia last year, but I don’t get the flu.

BORING. There is nothing more boring than writing about being sick, and it’s tedious to read, too.

So instead, go visit my friend Anne at her new blog, just up, Paper Tiger Knits. Yay, Anne! And because there are SO many cool Ann(e)s in the world (and it’s my favorite name, you know), you should go visit Ann of the Alpacas. She sent me some fiber a few months ago, just ’cause, and it is the SOFTEST stuff. Really. Go gitchoo some of this at Maplecorners.

https://rachaelherron.com/yes_i_took_that/

Con: I’m still sick. It wasn’t the tequila, alas. Indeed, the tequila didn’t do anything to kill the little germ that’s attacking my innards and doing a little dance in there.

Con: Doc barely looked at me, implied it was the flu, and didn’t even bother with trying to help my migraines, just wrote a referral to a neurologist.

Pro: Discovered the fasting blood-work that I’ve needed for more than a year could be done in the office right across the very hallway in the building where my realtor is, and realized that with the flu, I had been fasting, all right. Got that done.

Con: The lady didn’t do very well drawing the blood. Nope. Ouch.

Pro: Walked out of the realtor’s office with checks to pay off ALL my credit cards, thanks to a refinance and the fact that the creeks didn’t rise (LA Times article notwithstanding). The cards have been around my neck for about thirteen years. It feels amazing.

Con: Walked in the house and destroyed the venetian blinds by foolishly trying to open them. Silly of me, that.

Pro: I fixed them and now feel like a big stud.

Con: Still have a germ doing a manic little dance in my tummy, now to a Gloria Estefan cha-cha. No one’s happy in there, man.

Going back to bed now. Exhausted. Hope you’re well.

Bleah. I’m feeling just the littlest bit queasy, and my stomach is upset. I’m not sure what to chalk it up to: It may just be that I’m tired, even though I got plenty of sleep. We had a great day yesterday, lying in the (really hot) sun in Stern Grove in San Francisco, listening to Lucinda Williams and John Doe play a concert for FREE. Well, I’m sure they got paid for it. But we didn’t pay, nope.

And man, were there a lot of people. Luckily, we knew friends of friends of friends who got there at ten in the morning for the two o’clock show, and got great seats. We brought things to do:

That’s the Herron Mandola, the mandola that my dad manufactures. Anyone interested, let me know and I’ll put you in contact with him.  It’s got a sweet, sweet tone….

I brought knitting, and only knit about three rows. It was so friggen HOT. Lala was happy, cold-blooded thing that she is. I was pretty happy, but for a little while I was miserable and went into the shade to cool off. I run so much hotter than most people, and I don’t like getting overheated. That’s why I think my general malaise today has something to do with yesterday. Plus I believe there was a bottle of hot tequila being passed around. Note: Tequila should be warm at most. Hot is just asking for trouble.

So I’m off to laze about some more. One more picture for your WTF file:

It’s seriously a book of short linked period romances, with the same cats romping through each story. As near as I can tell, that is. Did you ever?

https://rachaelherron.com/bleah_im_feelin/

Can’t stop listening to The Ditty Bops.

 

They are so CUTE. Go look at that site. And listen here. Seriously, they are the cutest sound around right now, even though they talk about things like mucus. You can’t tell they’re talking about things like that (and don’t be scared, mostly they’re not) because they sound like they’re wearing pink pinafores and sitting in oversized porch swings, drinking spiked lemonade before they go out in the roadster to the jitterbug over in the next lane.

Lala found them on a fluke when we went to Hear Music in Berkeley (which she had been all excited about, and which I didn’t get. For some reason I thought they were where you went to listen to and buy music produced by Hear, the Starbucks division. Have you seen the pictures of their new group, Antigone Rising? That is a SCARY looking photo, I don’t know why, it just is (and the sound ain’t that good, either). So I didn’t jump up and down for joy. But then we got there, and while yes, it sells Antigone Rising and other coffee compilations, it sells all sorts of everything else, and there are tons of listening stations, and I lost her completely for a while as we went our separate musical ways.)

You will like them. Really.

And:

You bluegrass lovers, you MUST get your hands on the Lonesome Sisters. Not available many places, but I got mine from CDBaby, and they were super quick-like, which is good, since I’m a huge fan of the instant gratification of iTunes. Buy both of them. I mean it. Just do it. You don’t even have to listen to them, but if you want to, you can give ’em a spin here: Lonesome Sisters Clips.  Oh, the way their voices blend is incredible, and I love the way they can move from the traditional really old stuff to songs about the bar. Nothing finer. (Maggi, this is SO for you, babe.)

Remember ole George at my old house/La’s current house? Remember when Em met my pal?

And I told you how he’s flowering, right?

Yo. Flowering ain’t the word. You can’t even see the top of it in this photo because of the brightness of the sky, but it towers over the roof of the house. (Lala’s standing on a raised section of the neighbor’s garden.)

 

    And this is Oakland, people!

Crazy-pants.

Also crazy, but this is all mine: Last night a woman called, stating that there were miners drinking in front of her house. My brain just froze. Miners? All dirty and coal-scuffed, with pick-axes and bronchial coughs?

Jaysus. MINORS. As in juveniles. As in the type of call, word for word, that I get every night. Why my brain made it miners, I’ll never know. Apparently I am ready to live in the 19th century. Spinning wheels and banjos, baybee.