So many things

I have more kittens! Nebula came back to me with 5 new siblings. Here they are:

This is Biscotti. He is tiny (249 grams) and way too skinny. I suspect that problem will go away pretty quickly given that he loves to eat.

This little beauty is Cream Puff. She is much prettier now that we’ve bathed her.

Cupcake is a sweet little girl. She eats dry food on her own, so I think she will be one of the kittens who fares the best from this group.

This scraggly fellow is Meringue. He had an abscess that had to be lanced this morning. He looks nasty, but he is actually in pretty good spirits and he eats a bit of the wet food on his own.

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This tiny one is Sundae. This poor little dude weighs only 186 grams! He has teeth and loves being syringe fed. Heck, Merak weighed more than this one before he died. Sundae has a bit of diarrhea now. He was sitting on my shoulder for awhile tonight, and when I walked out of the room I noticed that there was cat poop in my hair! Sundae hasn’t figured out the box yet, so he just poops wherever he is. He even managed to crap a trail right down my back. Yuck! Once again, good thing cats are cute. That should be my motto.

And who can forget Nebby! He isn’t any bigger than when I dropped him off (he only gained 5 grams in 11 days), but his eyes have turned a pretty shade of green.

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Michael took some pretty neat pictures while I washed the kittens. Notice that Meringue looks fluffy in this shot. Also, check out the way the camera caught the water as it fell.

And what would a kitten with a fluffy face look like if you got that face wet?

I promised a squirrel story last time I blogged. Well, Michael and I were sitting on a little dock by Beaver Lake when a black squirrel approached us. I’m pretty sure that he is used to people feeding him because he gave me the sweetest little begging face. I told Mr. Squirrel that I didn’t have anything for him to eat. He moved closer then and gave me an even more pathetic face. I searched my purse, but all I could come up with was a mint. I put it on the dock, and Mr. Squirrel came running up to see what I had given him.

“Oh, that’s not food,” he impressed upon me. “It’s all I have,” I told him. Mr. Squirrel them picked up the mint and gave it a lick. “No, I’m sure that’s not food. What else have you got?” I started looking through my bag again, hoping to find the granola bars I often carry for quick snacks when I am starving and nowhere near food I can eat. The next thing I knew, Mr. Squirrel had put his tiny little paw on my knee and gave me a look that reminded me of the kittens. I almost wanted to pet him, but I didn’t want him freaking out and biting me. I continued to look in my purse, so he lifted himself up a little. “Let me help you find something in that bag for me to eat.” I was sure he was going to snuggle in my lap!

In the end, I really did not have anything for the little guy. “I’m sorry, but there really is nothing in there,” I apologized. Mr Squirrel shrugged, “That’s ok.” He then went on to pose for a few pictures before scampering off down the path in search of more people who might actually feed him. I tell you, even the animals are nice in Canada!

I made one more stop on Granville Island at a store that sells yarn - I believe it was called Maiwa. They don’t specialize in yarn - they seem to have lots of art supplies. They did, however, have a nice selection of dyes, roving, and some higher end yarn. I bought some merino roving and I intend to borrow Carisa’s drop spindle. I really would rather learn to spin on a wheel, but I think that a spindle will have to do for now. I’ll post a picture of the pre-dyed roving before I spin it.

We spent our last night in Vancouver at Grouse Mountain. If you search for Grouse Mountain from Google you will come up with 2 choices – the Summer or Winter homepage. I find that fascinating, but it makes sense. A lot of the hiking trails were closed off because of the snow. It’s so weird to have snow when it’s like 70°F. I experienced that only once before when I went to Wyoming.

We ate at the Observatory Restaurant on Grouse Mountain. Holy cow was it expensive. The prix fixe menu was $110/person or $130/person with wine tastings with every course. I didn’t really like much of what was on the prix fixe menu (I’m not much for seafood, and the menu was mostly fish), so we ordered a la carte. We spent nearly as much per person even without so many courses. That hurt the wallet! I will say, it was a great splurge given that the food was excellent and the view was incredible.

I have made just a little progress on the sleeves for Blaze.

I still need to untangle more of the yarn from the wayward hank in order to finish the project. Check out my sunburn.

Checking in and golfing

I am not going to post more pictures until I return home. The internet connection at my hotel is abysmal so it takes forever to upload anything. Plus, I’m using my husband’s laptop which doesn’t have my photo editing software (which I use to make the pictures a more manageable size).

I slogged through my email yesterday and today despite the slow connection. It almost seems like dial-up. Anyway, I learned that Merak also died earlier this week. If I am understanding the news correctly, he died of FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitus). That disease is incredibly lethal. It sure explains why those kittens were so unhappy all the time.

In other kitten news, I should have some more on Sunday! I may even get Nebula back (oh please, oh please, oh please!). Speaking of handsome little guys, I have a very cute squirrel story to tell when I can upload pictures again.

Today we didn’t do all that much. Mostly, we went to a pitch and putt course in Stanley Park. I got a legitimate par on one of the holes! The rest of them, I am sad to say, weren’t so hot. There were holes as short as 40 yards, but still I managed to get 4-7 strokes per hole. The other golfers were relative beginners, too, which means I had time to photograph the beautiful course between holes. I had such a terrible time that I plan to do it again tomorrow. I think we’ll try to go to Queen Elizabeth Park next. I just need to remember the sunscreen this time. It has been overcast most days this week, so when it got sunny I just forgot to protect myself.

Yarn Crawl

One of the big reasons I was excited to come to Vancouver is that I knew they had good yarn here. It gets very cold in Canada, and if anyone knows anything about nice yarn, it is the people who are cold and need it.

On Sunday Michael and I went to Granville Island, so I made a quick trip to The Silk Tree, a weaving studio. Fine gauge yarns lined the shelves, but nothing really inspired me. The yarn they sell is knittable, but it was all in off-white, black and red. I don’t fault them for this since they do specialize in weaving yarns.

On Monday and Tuesday I braved the public transit system to find the 5 remaining local yarn stores from my list. The public transit system here is pretty nice. The buses are clean, they run with a frequency that is totally acceptable, and they are not too crowded, even at rush hour. I wish that they would do that in San Francisco. I would be so happy if I walked onto a bus that was clean and on time.

Homecraft Importers is the first LYS (local yarn store) I encountered. The woman behind the front desk was really nice. We chatted a bit, and she even mentioned the Yarn Harlot! As I was ringing up these lovely yarns, the woman described the bus route I would need to take to get to my next stops. Canadians deserve their reputation of being nice and helpful.

My next stop was Birkeland Brothers. They have been around for about 70 years with most of their history in processing wool. They have a big carding machine in the back room. It’s quite impressive. I only purchased one skein here, but it is a nice sock yarn. 

  

The third stop was incredible. Three Bags Full, I believe, is my favorite yarn shop in Vancouver. While I was in the shop, admiring all the yarn, they got a shipment of Malabrigo yarn. I had never heard of this stuff, but I assure you I will not forget it now! You see, while I was wandering in the store, I tripped over something. That something crashed into a huge ceramic vase they were using to hold umbrellas (it rains here a lot). Well, that huge vase came crashing to the ground in slow motion. I was horrified, but I couldn’t stop it from shattering. They shop girls all came over to see what had happened, and I was sure, to kick me out. I was so red, so embarrassed. You know what they said to me? “It’s just a vase.” Yep, that’s it. I feel like in the US people would have been angrier and might have forbidden me to come back. They could tell I was so upset by what had happened that they told me to touch the Malabrigo yarn for therapy. I broke their vase, and they were consoling me! I will have to send them an apology gift when I get home.

Before the vase incident, I pulled out the sweater I carried around in my purse that day. Yarn shops are the best place to get reviews of your WIPs – you have a willing and enthusiastic audience, unlike, say, at home, where you have only a husband who is trying to care, two cats who think it’s nice that you want to talk to them, and one cat who thinks it looks tasty. One of the shop girls asked “Is that Blaze?” It  turns out that one of the shop girls, Mandy, edits patterns for Knitty. The girls all stood around and admired my work and the particular yarn I chose. I promised them that I would make the sweater my next FO just for them. They are excited to see how it turns out. I’m dedicated to the project now. I have started a sleeve! I’ll put pictures in when I have something to speak of.

I went home after that, partly because I had too much loot, and partly because I was tired. I knew I had another day where Michael was in meetings so I could go to the yarn store without worrying that I am ruining his vacation.

Although it was raining on Tuesday, I continued my mission. Many of the people we met in Vancouver have apologized to us about the rainy weather as if they had something to do with it. Michael observed that it was just the Canadian niceness coming out. Did I mention how much I like Vancouver?

I took a very long bus ride out to Urban Yarns on Tuesday morning. Luckily, I discovered the express bus which made the trip a bit faster. The reason I wanted to get to this place is that they carry Fleece Artist yarns. I have read so many rave reviews of their hand painted yarns, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Fleece artist yarn is indeed lovely and beautiful. The only problem is that it is outrageously expensive. I did come to this store for some Fleece Artist yarn, so I bought some. It hurt the wallet a bit, but I felt like it was ok when my husband picked up the most expensive one and said, “Wow, this is nice.” Usually he patiently waits until I finish talking to him about the yarns I acquire and gives me a smile that says “I hate spending money.” This time, he was compelled to pick up a skein and make a comment. Score one for Fleece Artist! I wanted so many other things in that store, but I had budget and space constraints to deal with. Fortunately, the shop girl told me on the way out that they do ship yarn. Now, I feel less sad about leaving some of the pretty things behind.

My last stop was to A Touch of Wool. I am really glad I went there. The first thing I noticed about the store is the “Pet Friendly” sign on the door. When I entered I was greeted by a very large lab mix dog. She was beautiful, and since I pet her, she thought I was just great, too! The lady who runs the shop was very nice to talk to. She was really helpful, too - she told me which bus to take to get back home. The yarn selection was decent, and I noticed that she had a lot of the Berroco Comfort yarn that I like, but in worsted and dk weights.

We went to a few more restaurants that I really liked. On Sunday we went to an Irish restaurant and I had a pretty good chicken schnitzel. On Monday we went to a Ukrainian restaurant and had perogies and something called pelmeny (like a perogie, but with meat filling instead of potatoes). Wow, was that stuff tasty! Last night we went to Wild Garlic before attending a Scottish Country Dance class. Maybe not the best idea before dancing with other people… We found that we have had the best luck with restaurants when we set out with no plan in mind.

 

First impressions of Vancouver

I’ll be up front about this – I think I LOVE Vancouver. We arrived yesterday morning, and I have had so much fun already!

First of all, I was struck at the compostion of the city. I expected the racial mix to be like that of San Francisco since most of what I had heard about Vancouver before I arrived made the cities sound much like one another. Vancouver is actually really white. There are a fair number of Asian people, but on our first day we saw only one hispanic guy and two black guys. I was totally shocked at how diverse this place isn’t.

The next thing that occurred to me is that it’s very quiet here. I keep thinking that at home, there are street musicians and people yelling and others driving by with loud music blaring out of their cars. Here, there is none of that. I don’t think I’ve yet seen a single car bouncing with the force of the bass from the stereo. Keep in mind that I spent a Saturday night here and didn’t come across that sort of thing. People here are very quiet and polite. I don’t even see as many people using cell-phones while they walk.

As for what I love about the city, well that’s a lot. I love the food. We went to a restaurant called Un-wined for our first dinner. It was amazing! They served tapas (small plates), and they were all outstanding. We went to a chain diner for brunch on Saturday, and I noticed that the portions were not as big as at home, and the food was much less greasy. This morning we went to the best place ever – the Cat’s Meow Lounge and Eatery.  Everything was cat themed! The bathrooms were called “Kitty Cats” and “Tom Cats.” Too funny!

Last night we just roamed near our hotel and did whatever came up. We ran across a comedy show at the Tom Lee Music Hall Theatre, so we went in. First of all, Carisa and Ryan, you’re going to love what we saw in the building:

I believe the show we saw was really right up Carisa’a alley. It was a community theater group doing sketch comedy. They were awesome! One guy did a bird impression that was impressive and hilarious – you had to be there. I’ll have Michael recreate it (as best he can) when we get home. They made Disney songs into Snoop-Dog style remakes (the Aladdin one was particularly funny – they mentioned picking up ho’s on the magic carpet…). There was the “rule of threes” repeating skit regarding roomates, carpooling and situations with girls going out dancing. There were 3 personality types – irritable, weird, and the glue. They explored how these types acted together and in sub-groups. It ended with them not knowing the words to O Canada - they reverted to The Star Spangled Banner.

I love the shops on Granville Island. So far I went to a silk weaving place and I saw a yarn shop that isn’t open on Sundays. There were other non-fiber places, mostly local art things. We also went to the Public Market. Really cool! I saw a really cute pet store. I didn’t go in yet, but I will on another day.

There were other things that caught my eye:

A guy in a kilt (just like Scottish Country Dance class)!

The white crossing dude really looks like he has somewhere to be!

One of the sidewalks has leaves pressed into it. How neat!

One of the only things I’m not thrilled with so far is that it is colder here. Not freezing, but I do need my San Francisco winter coat all the time. I also don’t really like how much like home this place is. I mean, all the chain stores are here. They are Canada-ed up a bit I guess. I saw a Denny’s where they replaced the apostrophe in the name with a maple leaf.

So for now, so far so good. I have good internet access at the hotel, so I will update as often as I can.

One last note: I received a call from Leo’s new foster mom yesterday. Apparently he is vomiting and has projectile diarrhea. I’m going to call her again tonight to see how he is. I hope he’s better.