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Say hello to my little friend.

Of course, I only got one (the silver one). I suppose I only need one, eh? I spent pretty much all of last weekend playing with it. Thank god Lala geeks out as hard as I do — she got my old phone when I upgraded, so we spent hours just mucking about in the new programs. So Palm Treo 600 users: Any tips? Programs that I should get? Any info on free ringtones? (Why are they so hard to find for this phone? Dude.)

It’s amazing. It’s now carrying my full schedule, and my work overtime balances, and my phone book. It takes photos. It tells me what time it is, everywhere in the world (why that one thrills me so much, I don’t know. But it does). I bought a little fold-out keyboard, and it’s carrying in memo form the writing I’m working on right now. So in my little black purse, I can fit my writing AND a sock-in-progress. I’m dying here. Watch me fan myself.

I lurve me some technology.

Did I mention it takes photos?

Miss Idaho:

Adah in low light:

And in really low light in a local dive bar:

That’s my favorite graffiti, ever.

Okay, back to playing with my device….

Hey, you know what’s not fun? Working 911 in a bay-side town that’s at sea-level during a tsunami watch. Nope. Thank god it was cancelled (but not before we fielded many, many panicked calls). Sigh. All’s well.

So, hi! How nice to see you! Did you miss me? Just a little? Where do I start? Here’s the answer: I don’t. I can’t catch y’all up on the vacation’s doings, because there were just too many of ’em. And they were good, and fine, and fun, and all of that, but you know how it is. You’re driving down the road on a lovely sunny almost-summer’s day, and you think, I’m going to blog this. I’m going to remember the smell, and the way I feel, and what it means to be right here, right now…. And then it never comes back, does it? Same with all writing, isn’t it? You wake in the middle of the night and have those words in your head — better get up and write them down, lady, ’cause they won’t be back to visit later.

What do I remember? I’ll just list them as they come to me, shall I?

(Ooooh — I missed you!)

Driving to my mother’s house for her birthday:  They pointed me through the Oakland airport lot, past all the big kiosks for Dollar, Enterprise, Budget. I trudged until there were no more kiosks and very few cars, carrying my bag and spinning wheel (of course) and presents for the little mama. I walked until I found a little sign that said "Fox Rentals," and found a very small man vacuuming a car. He nodded and pointed me to my car, a Honda Civic Hybrid (score! they had run out of regular economy vehicles), but it was banged UP. I had no idea how a car with less than 10,000 miles on it could be in such bad shape, but there were dents on all sides and the right side panel flapped in the wind. I made great sweeping motions to show him where to mark "damaged" on the checkout slip, and he nodded and chirped at me. As I drove away, he said with passion, "Thank you for taking this car. Thank you. Oh, thank you." It wasn’t until I was ten minutes away that I noticed the ants.

Ants. Filling the car. Not just a couple of ants, but swarming ants. How do you get an ant colony in a car? It is an impressive mark of my inherent laziness that I did not turn around. I noticed that while the ants walked freely everywhere in the car, they weren’t on the seats. I guess ants don’t like faux velour (think about those two words), and they remained on the doors and sills and most annoyingly, the windows. I could block out thoughts of the ants until they meandered through my line of vision. But they were okay. We cohabited the car. Dude, it was fourteen bucks a day. What were my options?

Also, just because your rental goes way faster than your every-day eleven-year-old car, please remember that it’s a hybrid, and not meant to race a BMW and a Mercedes. Just sayin’.

Dad and I took the little mama out for a good Italian dinner and then Mom and I went shopping the next day. Now, I’m not a shopper. But apparently I got shop-happy that day. Really shop-happy. I can’t remember ever  buying that many pieces of clothing in one day in my whole life. But have you noticed the prints that are out there? Sweet dresses and cute cotton skirts, all retro prints and just the right shape for me, too: lots of low vees and hourglass curves. Since this whole running madness, I’ve become more amenable to showing off what I’ve got. Really, at the age of 32, I’m happier in my skin than I’ve been since I was maybe 22. I don’t think that my body shape has really changed, but my confidence level has. It’s fun. Good stuff.

I signed up for the first half of the SF Marathon, and I’ve been training again. I ran six miles last week, which in and of itself isn’t a big deal. After all, in the last year, I’ve run at least eight half-marathons in training for the big one last December. But when you relax back into nice little 3-milers, even four is a jump. And the six? I realized when I was done that it was the farthest I’d ever run by myself. All those long runs were with other runners, with the encouragement of the AIDS Marathon staff. So six miles by myself felt great. I went from the Berkeley Marina down to the Emeryville Marina, all around the Watergate condos and back. I could have run farther. Gazelle day.

Then today I did a four-miler, and thought I was gonna die. Dude. Rhino day. I can’t figure it out. Okay, it could have had something to do with the fact that yesterday I ate Taco Bell for dinner and had two beers, and then got up and ran with no coffee and only cookies for sustenance, but then again, maybe not. Yay, sugar high! Boo, sugar crash. And I forgot sunscreen for the first time this season and have a smart pink burn on my shoulders. I hate that. I’m usually very good at sunscreen, too. Grrr.

It feels good to be back to blogging. I missed it more than I thought I would. So hiya. How are you?

Not really off my vacay yet, so only a tiny little post:

My lovely friend Christina, owner of Article Pract in Oakland, is doing me a major favor, and I’d love to help her out in return. She needs help in the store (such a wonderful store….), about 24 hours a week, and I’d love it if a talented knowledgeable reader of mine ended up in the store. Pay depends on experience, of course, and the boss is GREAT! Give the store a call to see when she’ll be there, and then bring a resume by in person. Yup. Tell her I sentcha, okay?

Mwah! More soon!

https://rachaelherron.com/not_really_off_/

Pictures. Lots of ’em. I’m on vacation again (I like to split my three weeks up, one every few months….), and I don’t like spending so much time on the computer when I’m on break.

Lala’s party! (If you weren’t invited and we love you, don’t worry, we still do, but we had space restrictions, and I limited invites to Lala’s friends Pre-Rachael (and my sisters, of course). Otherwise it would have turned into a knitting party, and you know what THAT’S code for. General debauchery. Can’t have that, no.

There would never be debauchery at any of OUR parties.

Certainly not.

No debauchery here, either. (Debauchery is just such a good word to say, innit?)

Oh, we GOT her. She was all tired and stuff, and I was all whiney after we went to dinner with her brother and sister-in-law, "But I wannnnt to see Spirited Away at their house…. Please?  I know it’s your birthday and you’re exhausted from your day, but please….." So she was a champ and said okay, and we went up the stairs into the living room and SURPRISE! Oooh, she was a little peeved at first. Heh.

She is the violent Buddhist sort, you know, so I got shot:

But then she realized, hey! These people don’t suck! I like these people! And then she had a great time.

And she got a sweater! (In June. I am Smart That Way.)

In fact, her head started to melt, she was so happy.

One of the best parts of the party was that we totally geeked out. La’s brother Richard has a bunch of Rubik’s Cubes. 2×2, 3×3, 4×4, and dude, the 5×5. He can solve them one-handed. I swear he peels the labels off faster than the eye can see and sticks them back on. So we were all kinda playing with those. And then someone dragged out my wheel (which I had brought, all ruse-fully), and everyone had a go on it. Man, I had some drunk tangles on there.

Behold, the Party Wheel:

        Joni was a natural.

I think a good time was had by all:

And not only that (there’s more! fabulous prizes!), we went on a little surprise trip. She’d never been to Yosemite, so we had to go in the ‘vertible (only way to go) and look at the sights.

I brought my knitting, of course:

Oh, and the Party Wheel:

Lala brought her banjo:

We so know how to party, yo.

(There was one fabulous moment when Lala looked up from the banjo, at me spinning, and said, "Oh, my GOD!" I thought a bear must be behind me or something. Then she said, "I just realized. We’re HIPPIES!" She was completely horrified.)

(And no, we’re not, honey. We’re geeks, but not hippies. I wear lipstick and you wear leather.)

(Also, although I am usually terrific about keeping the camp clean (stayed in a Curry Village tent cabin) and scent free due to rampaging alcoholic bears, I have to say it’s unnerving to wake up and realize that I left the trash bag with beer bottles and candy bar wrappers on the chair, and that the M&Ms I had hidden in the unused sleeping bag were on the floor, because it had become very cold in the middle of the night and I’d taken the sleeping bag out and spread it over us, and THEN, when we went to the car in the morning (I’d left the top down so that even if the bears smelled something (like the garlic-basil gouda we’d eaten on the road), they wouldn’t rip open the top), we found we’d left an open HONEY STICK on the floor of the front seat. Yeah. Go to Yosemite and leave HONEY in your car for the bears. Sheesh. Kind of amazing.)

I am paranthesed-out. So just a few more, and then I’m on vacation, blog and email-wise, until next Tuesday.

The Pink Handspun Sweater:

It’s Blue-faced Leicester, spun in soft singles, dyed with Black Cherry Kool-Aid (in a low-temp microwave, skein by skein, not left to cool) knit up on size 5US. Pattern is my own — just kind of knit until I liked it. Raglan, done in pieces, since I really wanted to get different shadings in different areas. I had one mistake ball of white/pink speckles, so I used that for one sleeve edge and the zipper bands. Zipper from Zipperstop, totally fast. I had the zipper by the time I was half-way done.

Can I just tell you I *love* this sweater? I’ve worn it pretty much since I finished it, nonstop. (In the heavy mist of Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite, I smelled a rising cherry fragrance…..)

I modeled it on those baby sweaters that you take off the needles and think, "Oh, I wish I had one of these for me, but big."

Adah likes it, too:

Okay. Have a good week, y’all! I’m off in the rain (weird) down the coast to celebrate Mom’s birthday.

MWAH!

Oh, aren’t you patient. Thanks for waiting while we traipsed around for Lala’s birthday — no time to really show you now, so a quick couple o’shots, and I’ll try to round some more up tomorrow.

What Lala got for her birthday:

(Man, I’m going to shorten that collar. I tried to play it off like it was all vintage, but it’s really just a collar that got away from me by two inches while I forgot to measure. It looks good like that in the back, but that’s at the sacrifice of the front. It’ll be better shorter.)

What I got for Lala’s Birthday

(Oh, and that’s the new pink handsupn, but more on that later….)

https://rachaelherron.com/oh_arent_you_pa/

By the time this posts, Lala should have already received her gift, so I can set this to post later today.

First: Lisa? At blogdogblog? She’s a miracle. I scoured the internet for a Mary Maxim pattern from the 50s that I wanted to make for Lala’s birthday, and couldn’t find it ANYWHERE. I turned the internets upside down and shook ’em, and nothing fell out but dust and an apple core. So I sent Lisa an SOS, and she said, "Hey, I actually have an extra copy." Now, who has an extra copy of the best pattern ever written? Lisa does. I aDORE Lisa. Always have.

And here’s what Lala’s unwrapping, maybe right now, all thanks to our Lisa:

And the back:

Woot! It’s Mary Maxim’s HoeDown (isn’t that perfect?). It’s a scream, innit? And I don’t think she had any idea I was making it — I got the yarn three weeks ago (I used Lamb’s Pride Bulky on 10.5US (me! On 10.5s!), and worked solidly on it, while at the same time working on my pink handspun to throw her off the scent.

I hate intarsia, and I’m bad at it. You can’t tell from the photo, but the people kind of pop out from the back, and I didn’t have time to block it. It’s almost a neat effect, though. Makes ’em look like they’re really dancing.

Oh, I can’t WAIT for her to open it. Wooooot!