Reporting in from Florida

I started this post two days ago, and Blogger was being pissy about loading the photos, and I got about halfway through before my patience was done, and I went back out on the lanai to read instead.

Today I tried again, and Blogger was all, "What, me give error messages? Never! Here you go!" So I can tell you some of what's been happening.

We start with a knitting update, courtesy of the four-hour flight delay that Jet Blue kindly gave me. (Yeah, that was fun. Still, I do prefer not to fly on a plane with mechanical difficulties.) (And after all, hitting McDonald's drive-through at midnight has a certain charm in the right company.) I started out working on the double-knitting for a while. Blue side:


Yellow side:


The alternating stitch colors on the needle tickle my fancy.


Here it is in Florida, so you can see I haven't made too much progress.


I am pleased with it so far, though.


I've worked out my plan for how I think I will switch the colors from side to side and incorporate the sage-green yarn. However, it's rather slow going at this point, since I have to keep checking to make sure that I didn't slip a stitch with the yarn on the wrong side, and correct it when I did, so after an hour or so I went back to the sock.

This photo has the needle stuck in on the right to show about where it was when I picked it up Tuesday at the airport.


And here it is in Florida the next day. Heel done and moving down the foot.


As I mentioned, I wanted to make it slightly taller than the previous pair, so here they are for a side-by-side comparison.


Now, on to other-than-knitting. One of the side benefits to this trip is eluding the last week of electioneering at home. It's going on here, too, of course, but somehow it's more amusing:


We went shopping on Wednesday, between lunch with a friend and our evening plans. We found some good things, and I don't mean this:


And when we stopped at the library book sale, I didn't buy this, either, but it was fun to learn that Rosey Greer had a needlepoint book:


I also learned that at least one brigadier general shops at Costco.


One of the things I like about SW Florida is that if you keep your eyes open, there are birds everywhere.


Isn't he beautiful? My mother says he's a wood stork.


We came into the shopping outlets from a different side than usual, and thus I learned that they have a fountain inspired by my favorite Roman fountain:



And of course, I had to commemorate the slight error made at the local Starbucks. Fortunately for me, we just wanted drinks. If I'd wanted one of these, I wouldn't have known what to ask for:


Our evening plans were in fact to go to a hockey game! It was freezing in there (there were season-ticket-holders around us who had brought blankets), but it was a lot of fun all the same. I had a soft pretzel, and enjoyed the atmosphere. The signs:


These jerseys, which fortunately turned out to be warm-up jerseys, and were not worn in the actual game:


Honestly, I hope they get a lot of money for that.


The Everblades' mascot:


The ice girls, who were called Everbabes:


Late in the game, I realized that the motif around the bottom of the jersey is teeth.


I also liked the fan boat in the side patch.


There was a car in the lot that had two themed bumper stickers:

And I had to work to get a non-blurry shot of this guy's hat. Do you think he would have held still for me if I'd asked?

There are some really fervent fans. I wish I'd seen if these two set off the lights when the Blades scored.

As for the puck-hat, well. It speaks for itself.

The hair, now, that I can't explain.

The Blades won, which made it even more enjoyable. At first, we didn't really care much, but the enthusiasm around us was contagious. It was a good time.

And that's just the travel day and the first day! I'm having a wonderful time, apart from the rotten headache I had last night. And even for that, I had my mommy, it didn't spoil any plans, and I feel good today. Tonight we're going to symphony!

Of course, there is a distinct lack of feline here.

But I don't miss cleaning litter boxes, to be honest. And I'll appreciate him more for the break.