August 09, 2004
We Had a Beachin' Time!
(Picture-heavy posting, Dear Readers!)
Many thanks to everyone who left comments while The Mysterious K and I were gone. I missed you and the blog amazingly much. And a special thanks and a hug to Anj who sent us a postcard from Provincetown! Anj, it was great to find the postcard waiting in my mailbox when we got back from the shore. I immediately called The Mysterious K and read it to her over the phone—which reminds me, I’ve actually been carrying it around in my knapsack for the last two days to show her, but have I? Nope. My bad.
Now for the trip. First, a quick geography lesson for those who care. We were on the Olympic Peninsula, the blue part on the small map to the right on this page, in the speck of a town of Pacific Beach, shown in the lower left-hand corner of the big map. (Note to Dear Readers Samina, Melinda, and Anj, the newest members of the Humptulips Fan Club: Look about an inch to the right of Pacific Beach.) Even more specifically for the locals who may also have been there, we were at Sandpiper Resort.
The one thing I learned on the trip was the breadth, width and depth of the ways that the term “resort” is used. Until this trip, I naively thought “resort” meant a place with golf courses, spas, luxurious rooms, and lots of ultra-pretty and ultra-rich people. But here in Washington, “resort” apparently means “a place that is not your home and may or may not have any amenities and may or may not be near a beach” and the resort itself can be anywhere from Palms Springs high-end-ish to five shabby and rusty mobile homes managed by Bubba BeerBelly. Sandpiper is somewhere in the middle. It’s not a fancy resort, certainly, but it is perfectly located right on the beach (Literally. Open the door—beach.), is pleasantly rustic, offers all the basic amenities including a fully stocked kitchenette, and is the perfect place to “get away from it all.” And most importantly, it allows dawgs.
Now for the pictures. Warning: The photos below are mostly of low-key forms of entertainment and gray, quiet beaches. If you like to bungee jump, hang by your fingers from tiny rock outcroppings, go spelunking in the deepest, darkest unexplored caves, skydive, mountain climb, or raft Class 5 rivers, these photos will probably bore the crap out of you. But they are a true representation of the wonderfully lazy time we had during our trip.
We spent a good portion of our time playing this:
While Scrabble is a great game in and of itself, we learned the true meaning of entertainment when we used this travel version for the first time since, every time we tried to press one of the letter tiles into place, five or six others would go flying off in every direction, frequently ricocheting off the window and/or Frankie's nose. It was more like playing a game of Tiddlywinks than Scrabble. Scrabblywinks, anyone? Or how about Tiddlyabble?
And we spent a lot of time playing this, the best-kept secret of the card game world, Milles Bornes. (Wonka, remember playing this?)
When we weren’t eating or playing games, we went for lots of walks, three or four a day. Here, for the first time ever, a full-body photo of The Mysterious K!
Although we don't allow Frankie to run around sans leash, by way of a compromise, we took a 40' lead with us so that, for at least 39’ 11”, she would think she was free to roam. This setup would work well for the first fifteen minutes of the walk until the lead would become water- and sand-logged and the poor puppy would end up muscling the thing across the beach. In this picture, while it may look as if TMK is just strolling along contemplatively and meditatively, she is, in fact, making a determined effort to wash the leash and prevent our dear dog from strangling herself.
For my part, I rediscovered the joy of flying a kite. Since it turned out to be quite breezy on the beach, on a whim, we went to a nearby town and bought a cheap-o $10 kite which, to my surprise, I flew for hours. Note to the stressed and borderline suicidal: An hour spent flying a kite—much cheaper and much more effective than therapy. Trust me. Try it. (Wonka, do you remember the black and white bat kite we used to fly when we were kids?)
Here I am executing TMK’s demand that I make the birds fly, make the birds fly, make the birds fly! Mr. Kite is still with me but is out of camera range which explains why my right hand is just sort of dangling out there.
And here, a photo of some of the hundreds of sandpipers for which the resort is named. Aren't the reflections of their feathery little selves in the water wonderful?
Although we spent a good two-and-a-half days at Sandpiper, ironically, the best moment came during our final hour there when we met another (female) couple on the beach. We instantly hit it off, I mean truly hit it off in one of those ways where you feel as if you have known your new friends forever. We learned that they were going to stop in Seattle for a couple of nights before heading home to New York so TMK spontaneously gave them her business card and invited them to contact us when they were in the city—and last night they did. We met at their B&B, spent five hours walking around the neighborhood, eating dinner, sipping coffee, and watching a sunset from the balcony at the B&B. How bittersweet it is to bond with two strangers so fast, only to have them fly 3000 miles away. Bon voyage, Janet and Carrie!
Knitting Knews
I finished the knitting part of the Janine Pillow but don't have a photo yet. In the meantime, Janine, help! What do I do now, steek-wise, i-cord-wise, and pillow-wise? And why, when I finished the pillow, didn't heavenly music fill the living room and why didn't I levitate and float half-way across the room with a sense of fulfillment, closure and completion?
I also finished the back of this child's sweater which I started in March, and am half way through the front. Again, no photo yet; this is the old photo I used before.
I am currently stuck on this pattern so, as always, I will float my question out to my ever-helpful Dear Readers.
The Question: I have cast off for the neck of the sweater and am now knitting the two shoulders separately. The next set of instructions says:
At each neck edge, bind off 3 sts once, 2 sts twice, then dec 1 st every other row 2 times.
Overall, I understand what I'm supposed to do and I understand what "neck edge" means so I guess my question is: At what point do you bind off and decrease? For each shoulder, it seems my choices are:
1. From the wrong/purl side at the neck edge.
2. From the knit/right side at the neck edge.
3. Both, meaning you decrease both from the wrong and from the right side.
4. The answer is different depending on which shoulder I am working on.
Can anyone help?