At Last, the Boat Tour in the Everglades

I promised last week that I would share pictures I took on the boat ride through the Everglades, and I'd like to think I wouldn't have forgotten even if I didn't have bug bites still itching to remind me.

Fun fact: did you know that when no-see-ums are swarming around pestering you, you may not realize they're biting you, because unlike mosquito bites, they don't start itching right away? True for me! Which means you can get bitten dozens of times without knowing it! Isn't that something?

It was about 24 hours before they started to itch, and then about 24 hours of insane itching. And ten days later, the bites are still there, not much itchy except when bumped or rubbed against something, like, you know, bed sheets. It's been fun.

But! The boat ride was worth it, and next time I'll have bug spray for the waiting period, and hopefully will not pay the itchy price for the fun of the experience, the birds, the rainbow, the sunset, and the photos to remind me of all of the above.

As always, clicking on the photos opens them bigger. It's worth it, as most of them have birds in the shot somewhere, pretty cool birds, and they benefit from enlargement.





























In summary: if you find yourself near Everglades City, take the boat ride. Just don't forget bug spray!

In Which I Pass You Off to a Master for Entertainment

Another night has come, by which I mean the evening has passed in the blink of an eye. It's mysterious, how that happens, how I look up and it's time to think about getting ready for bed.

So in lieu once again of more self-generated content, I will direct you to today's post by the Yarn Harlot.

To understand today, you need to know that yesterday, she wrote about the project she was finishing up, or in knitting terms binding off (aka casting off), and invited her readers to submit haiku on the theme. Which many of us did, apparently. Enough that she had server problems, and had to call tech support. She talked to Kevin:

Kevin: Sorry. I'm just looking at your comment log. How come all the comments are three lines?
Me: The readers are writing Knitting Haiku.
Kevin: ...... what?
Me: Knitting haiku. They're writing it. That's why there's so many comments.

The pause that followed was delicious. I could tell that more than anything else what Kevin wanted to say was ARE YOU SERIOUS THAT IS SO WHACKED but instead, placed in a dilemma of a professional nature, Kevin said the only thing he could.

Kevin: .....Of course they are.

Knitters. A force to be reckoned with. I love it.

You might want to look at those haiku, particularly if you're a knitter, or know one. Some of these people are, in the local (Boston, not Toronto) vernacular, wicked smart.

If Only I Could Get Ten Hours of Sleep a Night...

One of these days, I'm going to have the energy of an evening to string together a few coherent thoughts again ... even semi-coherent ... but it isn't going to be tonight.

So here's a good laugh for you, in lieu of anything even semi-coherent. Bonus Princess Bride reference!



Priceless. I give them a good chance.

Talking About This and That

Even with an extra hour, this weekend has flown by. I've gotten things done (lots of laundry, ran the dishwasher, made brownies to take to a party [and only ate one], had a headlight replaced on the car before the time change has me driving home in the dark, returned library books, a little shopping), but still, where did my weekend go?

Sigh. The regular Sunday night lament. At least this week looks to be fairly normal, knock wood. It will be good to get on a sort of schedule again.

Knit Talk
The double-knit hat, Take Two is going well. It isn't flawless (I saw at least one mistake, a few rows after I made it, that I decided I could live with), but it's far better than Take One was (what a difference a stitch marker makes), and more likely to fit my head when it's done. For the several hours today when I was being a cat lap (Carlos is a limpet this weekend), I got more done, including switching the colors so blue is inside and yellow outside. The next step will be changing the yellow to green: stay tuned!

The sock news isn't quite so positive. I was working on the toe decrease for the first of the raspberry socks yesterday at the auto shop (oil change etc), but I saw a mistake and decided that I could drop down the offending two stitches and fix them without tinking back half a dozen rounds. Unfortunately, the yarn did not cooperate, so I had to rip back anyway, and getting the stitches back on the needles was a nightmare. It's kind of a mess right now, and while it's totally fixable, I need to be less annoyed before I pick the project up again. I don't think it will be in time out for long, but it needs to cool off for a while. Or I do. One of the two.

Health Talk
It definitely could be that hormones contributed to my irritation with the knitting. I've got my period this weekend, and this cycle has been ultra-heavy on the emotional swings. I like to joke about things like "needing" chocolate around my period, but on Wednesday the PMS hit me like a freight train, where the feeling was less hmm, I could go for some chocolate, and more what chocolate and how much will I be getting? I mean, trust me, every month I am not buying two pints of ice cream and some chocolates* on the way home.

*I did at least go for the good stuff. If you like caramel, run don't walk to get Lake Champlain's caramel chocolate leaves, which are To Die For (try Whole Foods, around here they carry them). Not only is the chocolate high quality, but the caramel is fantastic. I would give up many pleasing chocolate things forever, to eat these. Not cheap, but utterly worth every penny.

I've also had several bouts of absolute fury over things that even I could recognize were nothing--and I don't mean after I calmed down, but even while I was spitting mad, I knew it was for no good reason. And last night, I got sniffly sentimental over nothing much, before bed. (Or bedtime, anyway; I ended up staying up late, cat on my lap, watching Ten Little Indians on TCM. Hilarious after recently re-watching Murder by Death! I chose not to switch channels and watch Atom Age Vampire, though. No sense of adventure, I guess.) Generally, if the Bruins lose, it doesn't make me happy, but this was more than that. Stupid hormones, I blame you.

Hockey Talk
Based on the last two games* the Bruins have turned in, it's a good thing I tempered my early-season enthusiasm, saying things like, "It's fun to watch, while it lasts." It's not that I think losing two in a row means only bad things going forward, it's just taken the edge of the feeling of They Will Find a Way that came with their performance early on. Ah, well. Wednesday is another day.

*As goalie Tuukka Rask said after one of the losses, they played a really good 20-minute game that night.

Then there was a story I read online about a rather unattractive hockey jersey (not just my opinion), where the kid who bought it is defending himself, and I liked the way the writer indicated disagreement:

we were pleasantly surprised when Ben wrote the following:

In this article you begged the question how much I would pay for this jersey. Well good sir, I have an answer for you: $355 plus $8 shipping. I have been eyeing this Wild Wing jersey for a while, and when a Selanne one came up (signed too), I knew it had to be mine. As a life-long Ducks fan (one of the few), I can say I am proud of this jersey, and I fully embrace its awesomeness.

He spelled "awfulness" wrong.

Nicely.

One of the Bruins players, not a tough guy, got pulled into a fight in a recent game, for which he got a penalty. Watch the video, and you have to agree with Puck Daddy:

I don't know how anyone could call that "fighting."

Exactly. Five for fighting, no. Two for being fought?

In the same post, they gave props to Tim Thomas, Bruins goalie, who kicked off the season on a ridiculous high.


Credit where it's deserved.

Time for me to have some dinner. I hope your weekends were good. Do anything fun?

The Totally Tired, What Night Is It? Post

You know it's post-vacation when working two days in a row feels more like ten. I'm so out of it tonight, I keep having to remind myself, it isn't the weekend yet.

Today wasn't a bad day for me personally at work, but there was non-me-centric work weirdness that left me rather unsettled. Let's just say, I may not mind so much that this is a temp job, not permanent. Anyway. Basically, I feel like this:



All every-which-way. So perhaps an early bedtime would be a good idea. I think so.

Back in the Saddle Again

It is pretty darned weird to have bug bites under my turtleneck, and sunburn under my boots.

After all, on Monday, I wore a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

Today, I wore a turtleneck under a long-sleeve shirt under a sweater, with long johns under my slacks, and low boots. I was a little warm at work this afternoon, but I was cold this morning, so it evens out.

I wore my coat for the first time this season, and gloves, which I was glad to have as I scraped frost off the car windows this morning.

Work was fine, not a rough re-entry, just steady busy all day. Suits me! The boss says the job will last at least through Christmas, if not longer, which is good to know. And I got my first paycheck, noticeably larger than I was getting, which is also good.

And! The Bruins are up 3-0 after one period in Buffalo. Shorty for Brad Marchand (his first NHL goal), shorty for Patrice, they're looking good, I look forward to the rest of the game (and getting into bed 3.7 seconds after the final horn sounds).

I did have to frog the double-knit hat. Checking my suspicions that it was too big, I put it on waste yarn so I could try it on, and it fell over my eyes. I could get it to stay on the head, but there was way too much give to it. That's okay, though. I only had two inches done (though essentially on two hats' worth). It's good practice in double knitting, and this time I will use a stitch marker at the beginning of the rounds, to see if I can improve on my wonkiness in that area.

Meanwhile, the sock is into toe decreases. Tra la la. Off to the second period!

I'm Home

I'm tired.

The bug bites still itch (which just seems wrong when the temperature outside is closer to 50 than it is to 80).

The flight back was perfectly fine. Boarded, took off, and landed a few minutes early, even.

Carlos was on the bed when I got home, and said, "Meow?" in some surprise when I came in. He was more than willing to be scritched, and purr. He and Miri are sleeping now, but I expect more lapping with him later.

I voted, and got a few things at the grocery store, and even picked up a book on hold at the library since I was passing by.

I'm not quite excited for work tomorrow, but some unwinding this evening and a good night's sleep should help.

My mind is kind of boggling that Mum will be here in six and a half weeks for Christmas. Not because I'm not excited that she's coming, because I TOTALLY am, but because that means there's only six and a half weeks before I dive head-first into Christmastime. And that seems really weird, particularly when my feet are still a little sore from sunburn.

Saying Good-Bye to Florida

I have mixed feelings tonight, my last in Florida this trip:

• I'm sorry to leave my mother.
• I'll miss the warm weather.
• I'll miss being on vacation, sleeping late, and being, frankly, spoiled by my mother.
• I'll be glad to get back to my own bed, and shower (particularly in light of the plumbing problems that chose the week of my visit to erupt in my mother's building. Not that it's a problem for us to share a bathroom, but still).
• I'll be glad to see Carlos, and snuggle in bed with him purring.
• I'll be glad not to be living out of a suitcase.
• The sunburned backs of my legs and tops of my feet are sore.
• My mystery bug bites itch.
• I'm apprehensive about the trip tomorrow, and whether it will include any delays or other problems.
  

But let's not face tomorrow yet. Let's look back over the week, shall we? I posted about the trip, and the first day, so that brings me up to last Thursday.

Oh, wait, look at this first. Isn't it cool?


All right, Thursday. My mother had her bridge group in on Thursday morning, so I puttered and lazed while they played. We then went to lunch with one of her friends. It's a rather lovely setting:


And someone was quite sure we wanted to share our lunch:


Thursday night, we went into Naples to hear a concert given by the US Army field band, which was stirring and patriotic. If they come near you, there are worse ways to spend your time, that's for sure. I'm hardly a flag-waver, but I enjoyed it (though I wasn't exactly expecting them to spend so much time on the music of Huey Lewis...). And I learned that I recognize all the songs of the armed services except the Coast Guard's.

Friday we again ate lunch outside (are you sensing a theme?), and again I was bird-watching:


Also boat-watching.


Can anyone explain this hat to me? A cigar-smoking, sunglasses-wearing fish skeleton?


No matter. Moving on, I'm sure I've posted photos of this manatee mailbox before, since its owners tend to "dress" it in seasonal costumes that can be quite amusing. There's construction on their road now, and they had the perfect response:


In other animal sightings, there's the ever-popular Santa Giraffe.


Wasn't he always your favorite, too?


And of course, the alligator where you least expect it.


We also saw beautiful flowering trees.


That was on Saturday, when we went to the symphony in Ft. Myers. I didn't take many pictures, since it's more of an audio experience, but I did notice this sign conflict when we walked by it.


I have something non-combustible; can I store it here? Yes! No!

Inside, I liked the prism of light over the flag:


We sit in the back row, which amused me:


On Sunday, we drove to Everglades City and took the boat tour, which was wonderful, and deserves its own post for the many, many pictures. Here, however, are some highlights from the dinner menu afterward:


Frog legs, gator nuggets, or swamp and turf?


What about scallpos?

Then there are the other shells. We walked on the beach on Friday:



And again on Saturday:



And on Sunday, along with the sunburn, I got quite a lot of lovelies:





Here's one photo from the boat tour, just to tease:


Come back again, won't you?