Illinois and back again

My mom: (re: the iHop in Batavia, IL) You should have been here last week, there was a camera crew filming here. Our little iHop is gonna be in a movie!
My brother: (screams) Batman?!


(After talking to middle-aged guy about Sci-Fi for two minutes)
Guy: You don't meet many girls who like sci-fi. Here, let me give you my card. If you ever want to watch sci-fi together.
Me: I think I’m a bit young for you.
Guy: How old are you?
Me: Twenty-four. *waves hand* These are not the droids you’re looking for.

I am recently back from Batavia, IL, where my mother and brother live.
Epic picspam incoming, potentially nomming your internets.

Another trip to Sarasota-Bradenton Airport. It has wireless internet and I've been known to camp out at the Starbucks there. Not this time though as I was knitting my Stewardess scarf at the gate.

Window outside the plane in Sarasota. We just managed to miss some pretty crap weather, but look at that sky before it started to storm.

The flight from FL to IL was at night and I was struggling to stay awake. Until I rediscovered my love for Angry Birds.

I got to see my ex-dog again, Hunter. Best dog in the world. He bowled me over when he saw me and I actualy messed my back up pretty good when I was smashed into a large ceramic flowerpot that was on the ground.

We played Tripoley on Saturday.

My uncle Jim had the worst luck by far so he grabbed Hannah for good luck.

It didn't help.
Left: my uncle's loot.
Right: my aunt's loot.
Aunt Peg killed us all. Midway through the game my mother and my aunt switched seats because we thought her seat was lucky. It didn't work and Peg won the big pot of coins in the end.

I am ashamed to say I ran out of coins first and having Lu on my team didn't help.

Sunday morning we wanted to take a bunch of pictures together so I was testing out my timer function. My brother is such a goof, he would mess the picture up right before the timer went off.



My brother is known for his epic ability to photobomb a perfectly normal picture. Here are the best ones from our photoshoot:

I call this one "Vincent needs an exorcism."

Making fun of me for being short.

Immaeatchoo.

Haha, I have no caption for this one.

Or this one, loling. Way to ruin a great picture vin!

Troll.

My favorite restaurant at Midway International Airport in Chicago.
Tasty sammiches and they proudly brew Starbucks.

The flight from IL to FL seemed much faster than FL to IL because it was day-time. I knit the whole time and my seat-mate was bumped to business class so I had the whole row to myself.

I have no shame, and hit starbucks soon as I got to Sarasota's airport again.

And a banana bread.

Iced tall white mocha. Breakfast of champions and people who don't want to sleep.

Beautiful day in Sarasota.

Doctor Who started up again with the second half of season 32 today. The episode was called Let's Kill Hitler.
The Doctor: "Crop circles to get my attention? Seriously?"
Rory: "Well, you never answer your phone..."


"I was on my way to this gay-gypsy-bar mitzvah-for-the-disabled when I suddenly thought, 'Gosh, the Third Reich's a bit rubbish, I think I'll kill the Führer.' Who's with me?!"
Ahaha. I don't really like River Song but that line was perfect for her character.


I would like just like to mention that I only had starbucks once, when I got back to Sarasota. I didn't get one every time I saw a starbucks. If that were the case, I would never sleep.


Current song:
"Tattoos" by Jackpot. This song makes me want to rob a bank then drive my getaway car off a cliff.

Joyce H: You wanna take this medication with 8 oz. of a clear liquid. Gatorade, water, tea--
Patient: SCOTCH! YOU CAN SEE THROUGH SCOTCH!

(On faking the moon landing)
Sarah: If you buy a laser pointer you can shine it on the Moon and see the reflector dish that the Apollo astronauts left up there.
Joyce J: You can do that with a regular old laser pointer?
Sarah: No, a thousand-dollar one.
Joyce J: Yeah, no thanks. I'll stick to my theory that it was filmed in Arizona.

I struck gold last Thursday when I was getting into my car after work. I've never been so happy to have a camera than at this moment. This picture doesn't even need a caption. Suffice to say there is no Irish or Scottish restaurant nearby. Well, McDonald's.

No, really? This does not an allergy make.
My office likes to keep bringing up the person who wrote "Epinephrine - it makes my heart beat faster" as an allergy.

Unholy, yummy pizza.

Melted butter, cinnamon and Sugar on a tortilla. 350 for 9 minutes.

I've become addicted to knitting lace.

I still have 450 yards of gray left because I keep ripping out what I knit. I am currently working on two at the moment.
This one is "Stewardess". It's quite nice and very easy to memorize but the problem is that it's knit in stockinette which means there is a "pretty" (knit) side but also an "ugly" (purl) side.

And this is "Sleeping Beauty" by Arlene, a German knitter who is my lace guru. I love checking her store on Ravelry.com and seeing she has a new pattern published. However it's crazy difficult, as most of hers are (she was the one who wrote that leaf pattern that I gave up on). How the hell do you even design something as complicated as this?
I had to restart this six times because I kept &%$#ing up and I wanted to ragequit but since I spent a few bucks on it I wanted to at least get through ONE pattern repeat.

My problem was that I am better at reading knitted instructions than following a chart, and this pattern is 100% chart with no words. I had to google "how to read a knitting chart" to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Unlike "Stewardess", this pattern is knit in garter, which means it's "knit" on both sides (has no ugly side), which is good for a scarf.


Have I mentioned I can't wait for it to be cold again?