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I had a Very Good Shopping Day yesterday. I mean it. Please don’t hate me.

First of all, I got lots o’plants. Lots of ‘em. That’s what I like most about a convertible. Technically, it’s a car. But in reality, it’s an SUV, a Super Unique Vehicle. You pop that top down and you can haul tons of stuff around. Here’s the front of the car, taken with the camera phone. What you can’t see is the five bags of potting soil and four more boxes of flowers and veggies in the back.

Then I went to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, an amazing repository of JUNK. I got a ton of old pots and an old wooden ironing board for my outside gardening table. I got some tiles and low tables for adding various heights to the plants (which I’m going to keep in pots until I commit to their placement).

But hold your breath. This is where the magic starts. The Depot always has some yarn in the back bins, crap piles of half balls of acrylic. You know the kind. Red Heart sticking to clumps of fifties mohair.

Yesterday I hit the jackpot. Here’s my bag:

And what was inside the bag:

That, people, is EIGHTEEN skeins of Crystal Palace Sierra in the softest wool ever, 95 yds/skein. I did an internet search on it, and the only stuff they make now called Sierra is undyed wool, so I think this was discontinued before the online yarn revolution. I can’t even find another reference to it. Anyone know it? Used it?

I also scored those two skeins of Scottish wool and that lovely green merino from Italy, Lana Borgosesia dal 1850 (okay, I really got it for the sheep graphic). Socks anyone?

This is where it gets CRAZY. I carried a couple of skeins up to the counter, heart beating fast, and asked how much. He shrugged and said, “Fifty cents each?”

Oh, lord.

I took my twenty-two skeins up and said emphatically, “I have twenty-two skeins. You said fifty cents each. That’s eleven dollars!” This was in case he had forgotten me from the minute before or couldn’t do the tricky math.

He shrugged again and I think he felt sorry for me. “We can call it ten.”

You know that look you get on your face when something really good has happened but you’re trying not to overreact? I almost ran out of the store, the bag clutched to my chest, fighting my face. It wanted SO much to beam, but I played it cool, man. Yeah. It wasn’t till I got to my car that I did the happy dance, punching the air, hopping a little. People walked WAY around me.

TEN DOLLARS for a lovely (someday) sweater and two pair of wool socks. I’m tellin’ you.

And you’re right, that was a little much for one day. So I rested for the rest of it, only tidying the yard a tiny bit and leaving all the potting for today. Tonight I go back to midnight shift, so I’ve got to take it pretty easy today, and make sure I get a nap in (I’m SO bad at naps).

Still beaming. Woot! as La Brainy would say.

Feeling a lot better today. For the first time my energy feels “real,” not something brought about by coffee. Not that I’ll squander it, mind you. Not messing about with pneumonia, I promise. But I know I do have enough energy to go buy some pots and some soil and then to tamp my little plants into them. No more than that. But if I don’t get Out There, I’ll get sicker. I know that. Must. Be. In. Garden.

I promise I won’t go look at statuary. Ahem.

Hey, I was going through pictures last night, while I was making a new banner (you like? It’s a detail of one photo, although it looks like two. I’m standing on a small pier jutting into the canal, looking San Marco-ward. It reflects my current passion for orange…..) and I found a picture of Bethany’s sweater. Did I ever show you?

It was for her birthday and it matches the design of Christy’s Harry Rodgers sweater (see Finito gallery). I think I made it and mailed it without ever posting the pic. That makes me feel a little better about my gallery which hasn’t been added to in a LONG time….. Oh, Cromarty….

And this is what I’ve been working on lately, while waiting for the new dyelot from Koigu to finish Cromarty:

It’s the Retro Prep from the Fall 2002 Interweave Knits, in Noro 55. I tried it on last night, the needles hanging around my neck, and I think it may turn out to be a wee bit boxy on my already boxy frame, and I may cardiganize it, like I do everything else. I’ll finish it and let you be the judge.

Off to play now. Mwah.

It’s an odd light outside – that warm late afternoon brightness hitting the leaves, a sullen cold darkness underneath. Do you know what I mean? It’s spring, but the light has that early autumn look to it. I have the window all the way open, and Digit is sitting at the screen, licking his chops, satisfied that he woke me from my nap in time for dinner.

Yes, nap. No, I wasn’t at work. I did go in yesterday for ten hours and left more tired than can be imagined. On my doorstep at home was a gift of SLIPPERS from one of my favorite people, so I was very cheered. Today I got up, feeling like hell, like a cow had slept right ON my chest and I couldn’t move the beast. I went in to work. At hour eight, I went home four hours early. Luckily, the people who had to cover for me did so cheerfully, and almost voluntarily. I think my cough is fierce and alarming to those not used to it. And I realized that eight hours, while it’s a short shift for me, is long damn enough (I think I meant “damn long enough” but I like it better this way).

I think I’ve been a little naive in thinking that it goes like this: You get sick. You get better. ‘Tisn’t like that. It goes more like this: You get sick. You get a little sicker. You get a little better but still feel sick. Maybe a little better after that, but don’t PUSH it. Then you feel pretty sick again. I push things. Why, yes, I do. Surprised? Why not?

I was supposed to go to dinner tonight with friends, after my shift (I know, I know. I push). I was so sad that I would miss them (and the steak they were cookin’ for me), but when I called to cancel, my lovely friend said she’d drive my dinner over later. That’s what you get when you listen to your body. (OMG, speaking of listening to bodies, did you read Greta’s post today (March 27th, Stars on Ice)? Holy cow. She is dialed IN, people, and I’ve seen it in action.)

I get almost three more days to rest up, don’t have to be back at work until 5pm on Tuesday to start back to midnights. I’ll be good and strong by then. And now, I’m off to enjoy watching the light change in this dusk…..

See, the secret to Typepad is to compose your blog posts whenever you want and then just time them to launch whenever you like. If I write this post right now, this Thursday afternoon, and have it show up tomorrow morning, I’ll be golden till Sunday. I can’t post from work, because I can’t download PICTURES at work. But I want to write right now while the skies are recovering from a massive downpour (what are the odds of that? In a week of sun, pneumonia-girl goes out in the rain?), with the heater on, both kitties washing themselves, the promise of Zachary’s pizza in my future. Much better writing now than in the morning between phone calls.

Without further ado, may I present:

(red-eye reduction by reader Steph – thanks!)

This is Leslie, of Nake-id Knits (and of the p.12 piece in the new Vogue Knitting! Whoo hoo!). Just how cute is she? We got the chance to get together today. (I mean yesterday, must remember posting time….) We had chai, and knitted together (her Must-Have really is a must have, in Arucania burgundy), and did a little yarn shopping at my LYS, Article Pract. Always a great store, it was made even more fun when checking out and the counter-person said, “Are you Rachael?” Well, she had heard the owner, Christina, say hello to me when we walked in. Okay. There’s that. But she HAD put me together with my blog, and she also reads Leslie’s, so it was a fabulously fun moment. Hi, Amy!

And Leslie gave me this which I LOVE:

(Digit likes it, too.) It’s Interlacements Little Toes, color 216, and she got it for me because of that gorgeous orange in there. She knows I’m into orange lately.

I don’t know if she knows HOW into orange I’ve been lately:

She’s just like you’d imagine, sweet and funny and smart as a whip, and it just goes to promote the Not Weirdness that occurs when like-minded bloggers meet. For some reason, Oakland seems to be a knitting hub of an odd sort, and I’ve been lucky enough to quite a few of you. But I want to meet all of you! Can’t we have some big knit-blog party somewhere? (Say, Fiji?) Where we all sit and drink and knit and laugh. That would be a party, all right. What I liked was that a bunch of her family members were with her when I picked her up, and I shook everyone’s hand, and then when it got to Leslie, we hugged and said “Nice to meet you” at the same time. I’ve never met a knit-blog friend and NOT hugged immediately. Nice, that.

Physically, I’m feeling better. The outing with Leslie was just about at my limit, and I came home feeling pretty worn out. But happy. As I hope you are. Happy Friday.

Man, mornings are the hardest right now. I swear when I went to bed last night, I was feeling pretty good. But this morning, I’m wiped out again. Completely. Terribly. To the point where I don’t even want to get up to download the (kitty) photos that are on my camera.

Sigh. That’s my grumble for the day. Overall, I’m much better, and I think I’ll be up for a day at work tomorrow. We change shifts this week, so I’ll only work Friday and Saturday, then have two days off and start back on midnight shift (9pm-7am) on Tuesday night. Six months of midnights! I’m happy about that because it means I’ll have Sat Sun Mon off for the summer, and I have LOTS of things to do on the weekends in summer. Three music festivals, Pride, my BIRTHDAY (the day after July 4th)….

But I have a new plan. We’ll see how well I implement it, but I’ve discovered something this last sick week. This may be a “duh” moment, but I’ve found that it’s very nice to do nothing. (I never do nothing.) And towards the end of my recovery here, it’s been difficult to keep myself down, but when I succeeded, I found it was very nice to move from the bed to the couch and back to the bed again. My new plan is to give myself a day or two like that a month. For people with families and great big houses to maintain, I understand this would be an impossibility, but for me and my two kitties, it’s do-able. I don’t even look to these days as knitting days, because that’s Doing Something. If knitting happens, so be it, but if just reading happens, so be that, too. It’s been a wonderful quiet time here at casa del’Rachele and I want more of that in my life.

We speed up so fast, don’t we? It’s hard to slow down. I want to practice.

But on the flip side, today is the day I get up. No, really, I know I’m ready. First, I’m going to do laundry (which is easy, just walk it down the corridor outside to our machines). Then I’m going to have coffee with a friend (more on that tomorrow, hopefully). And maybe a spot of grocery shopping. We’ll see about that one. That’s it. But for a gal who has done NOTHING for a week now, that feels like a hell of a lot.

Well, I’ll confess. I did one thing Monday night. I realized it was a bad idea about ten minutes into it. But by then I’d made the commitment and had got out all the tools, and I didn’t quit till I was done. I hung my white twinkle lights (thanks to Gina’s generosity)! It might seem silly, but I always need my white lights (I turn the twinkle off) wherever I live. They make me happy and they let me know I’m home. I was covered in sweat and shaking by the time I was done, but I just took a bath and then relaxed on the sofa, under the happy lights. Damn, now I HAVE to get my camera. Hang on.

Okay, see?

And because every day that I stay inside turns into a photo op with the cats, here’s a sun shot of Adah. She’s a rolly little tub, but somehow she manages to stay on the sill:

Sigh. Do as little as is possible today, okay?

Oh, Livio, I love you. This gallery just made me soooo happy. A Venetian artist, who drives his CAR through the canals, oh happy sigh. I’m going to go visit him next time I go, to thank him for this kind of joy, shown in my favorite photo of him just passing the Rialto, here. Thanks, Yvette…

Feeling better, but feeling tired and not much like posting (or doing anything else, for that matter). So ciao, all.