German chocolate, etc.

Yesterday was the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Takashi Tanemori is one of the few survivors of this bombing, and lives in Berkeley, California. I've been looking at his artwork. It's pretty awesome*. Unfortunately, he is now almost completely blind due to radiation exposure from the Hiroshima blast.
* when I use the word awesome I truly mean it. Not as in "OMG my bus actually arrived on time" or "I like the way your shoes match that jacket".

WTF?!? #4: According to Deborah Oduwa, the voice mailbox of the Oakland Police Dept. Homicide unit is full. They can't keep up with the messages or receive any new ones. And I guess that also means they don't have anyone actually answering the phones either. That's fucked up. Deborah Oduwa is the fiance of Chauncey Bailey, an "outspoken African American news reporter" for the Oakland Post who was murdered last week.

Obligatory knitting content: About the lace... After I posted about it I was thinking to myself "hmm. I've never used one of those life lines, I wonder if that would be wise. I guess I don't really need one if I keep diligently counting my stitches after each row..." So of course the one time I didn't do this I made a mistake which I didn't discover until passing it again on a RS row. I couldn't figure out the problem at first, with my confusion being compounded by the placement of stitch markers under yarn overs. Thoughts of it actually pained me while I was at work the next day. Anyway I finally got it undone and fixed after an hour and a half Saturday evening. (It was a missed yarn over. ack.)

Ok so I'm merrily finishing up the row with the fixed mistake behind me and Dees comes home. He can tell by looking at me (maybe by the creases in my forehead) that I'm working on something complicated and maybe even a little precarious and gets the grin on his face. The one where the dimples are in full effect and you can see all his teeth. Oh no. He gets a bounce in his step. I immediately panic because I know he's about to come poking and grabbing and going "what's that? what's that? what are you doing?", etc. Aaarg. It ended up okay, but I had to put away and work on something much more mindless: flower petal shawl #2. It's in dark blue Frog Tree Alpaca. Yes. I'm daydreaming about chilly weather.

Dessert: Friday I made cupcakes for my friend's 40th birthday. It was my first attempt at German chocolate. They were delicious, I must say. Dees inhaled 5 of them in one day. Most importantly, Joe loved them!

Here's a nice shot of Trixie at our swimming hole. Our property is right on Kelsey Creek! Beautiful. (Heh heh - wanna buy a house?)