sister of the bride II

I should start with my sister's shower/bachelorette, except we're watched the new Casino Royale, which is excellent. And now White Chicks is on, and I've never seen the whole thing.

The shower was good and went off without a hitch. The Old Colony house is a lovely place to have an event, service was great, the food was good. It was wonderful to see people, and Kate will need to re-register.

The kids' birthday party was hectic, going from one event to another, but Tak did fine going solo while I was still doing best-woman duties. I went & picked them up, and brought Owen & gifts to my parents' house. Then back home to party. Tak went off to meet the boys, and I left to meet the girls.

1st stop: Flash's for dinner. Started the night out right with Dark & Stormies. Food was great and we were there for 3 hours. They were very nice and let us have our Sweet n'Nasty cupcakes, which went over very well.
Oh, yeah, and it snowed.
2nd stop: Limelight for karaoke. I opted for the "private" studio, which was fun because we could be as cheesey as we wanted to be and not have to worry about Emaerson students. The drinks were big and strong, but our waiter kept opening & closing the door instead of bringing them all in on a tray. The singing was so much fun I'm just getting my voice back.
3rd & last stop: JJ Foley's. There isn't a better place to end a long night of drinking than at Foley's.
2:15AM: time to go home. Katie, Meredith & I hailed me a cab, miraculously on Beacon Hill. I hadn't been out that late in a looong time, and was shocked to see so many people out trying to get cabs. It was surreal.

Tak beat me home: he was back at 11:30, but the grooms' men started at noon. Their party included tequila shots. The next morning/afternoon we didn't recover until 12:30-1pm, when my parents brought back Owen. Needless to say, I've gone to bed early most nights this week. And "Heaven is a Place on Earth" has been jumping into my head at random times this week.

nature shock

Tonight at my parents' house, a big fox came trotting through the yard, and across the field next door. It was sudden, and had just caught something. Sometimes I forget how closely these creatures live to us. When it snowed Monday night, I saw--maybe it was even this same fox--animal prints close to the house before the tracks went towards the woods. All of us just watched the fox in the twilight.

On an odd note, I have weird memories from childhood--I must have been 5ish--of checking books out of the library where we lived in upstate NJ that had color photos of teddy bears doing stuff outside. Although I might be getting them mixed up with the Leo Lionni books, I feel like some of them may have been mice in the (real) grass.

Owen has been asking for his own library card, but I have to find out what the minimum age is. We are currently reading George & Martha, and he loves them.
I am reading Stolen by Kelley Armstrong, the follow-up to Bitten. Since I'm on my parents' computer, I don't want to download anything that I won't be able to figure out how to delete later. It's amazing how much I've forgotten about using PCs since I've been back on a Mac for the last few years. It was bad enough that I had to explain to my mom what a blog was and that I had to tell her I had one.

We're in the home stretch for my sister's wedding. The shower & bachelorette are this weekend. Should be a treat!

jolly good show

We're finally watching Bridge on the River Kwai. It's fantastic...and long. What motivated us to watch it was Sessue Hayakawa, one of the first Japanese actors to break into Hollywood--in 1915.

Happy Evacuation Day and St. Patrick's Day. We've been invited to a friend's family home in Southie to watch the parade on Sunday. Again, something I've never done in all my years of living in Boston. Maybe it's the insanity of dealing with the yahoos who come in, like on First Night. But this year will be fun, and Owen's first big Irish parade.

Also on Sunday is a new Boston Comic Con, at the Back Bay Events Center. Something to do before or instead of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. People I know who'll be there: Paul Gould, Hannibal King, Mark Poutenis, and Frankie B. Washington

In other comic book geekery, my friend Pete does a fun improv show in NYC called the Comic Book Club at the PIT. Congrats on the show, the website, and interviewing the editor of Captain America. Keep up the good work.

Just finished: Gene Yang's American Born Chinese. It got a lot of hype as being part of the graphic novel wave, and deservedly so. Quick read and superbly done.

Owen and his jingly hippo have stumbled into the room, so it's time to get in the big bed. Good night!

Knits in the Dig

Here's the photo used in the Dig of the mini hat & scarf I knit for the photo shoot. (It'll open in a new window.) The little blue hat & bag came out better. Big props to the design team who made the whole set from scratch.

Owen's been using the gift bag I made to carry his nice stones/rocks in. Guess I'll have to make another.

cold snap

Crivens! Winter isn't done yet. It's still ridiculously cold. Finished Wintersmith, though, and liked it better than Hat Full of Sky. It's just a really enjoyable series. Love those Mac Nac Feegles.

Knitted a smaller version of the gift bag on the cover of Last Minute Gifts, but in Malabrigio yarn. It came out really nice, especially as my first time doing yarn overs. Now I just have to figure out what to put in it! Next I'll have to do the gift bag in the yummy Blue Sky Alpaca yarn like in the book.

Finally saw the Departed. Holy smokes. It's amazing. There are very recognizable scenes from Infernal Affairs, but it's also its own film--as it should be. And the language is outrageous. The extras are worth it for the second disc. We also got to check out Letters from Iwo Jima, which was also incredible.

Oh, and remember how I didn't think I'd need another circular knitting needle? I need a 24" size 15 for my next projects, a felted handbag and the Diotoma shell from Webs. Oops. Of course, Michael's didn't have one in 24" (or 32"), but in 29". At least I can return it.