Whew...I've been back home for a week now but I'm only just making it back to the blog! Of course we had a lovely time in San Francisco--we had last visited there about four years ago and did a lot of the tourist-y stuff back then, so this time we just did a lot of walking and sight-seeing in the neighborhood where we were staying (Nob Hill). I was particularly enamored of the tiling around doorways, the iron gates on every door, and the plethora of old neon signs that can be found everywhere.

Also everywhere was a lot of:Stairs, hills, hills, stairs...argh! No wonder everyone is pretty fit-looking in that city! We didn't do too bad but by the second day I definitely had a wee bit of soreness in the posterior!
Lots more pictures on Flickr.

The knitting was not horribly neglected either, due to the six- to eight-hour travel days including layovers. I made some decent progress on the first of my "Funfetti" socks:Although I think they should actually be called "Froot Loop" socks now. This is actually a pattern created by blog-friend Dipsy (thanks Dipsy!) called Lacertilia. I needed something easy-to-memorize--who wants to fumble with a difficult pattern while on a cramped plane?--
so these fit the bill perfectly. The only bummer is that the stripe-y yarn kind of obscures the patterning--it would definitely look much better with just a regular variegated like the originals. Also, my yarn colors border on garish to my eyes, but who's going to be staring at my feet anyway? Hmm...maybe I don't want to know the answer to that question.

I am starting to feel like I have too many projects going on...yes, three projects are just too many for me! I just hate forgetting where I am when I pick a project back up, and the more projects I have going, the longer the interval between working on each item. I really want to get the toddler aran sweater done asap, as it is starting to get a bit boring. The Victoria Shawl has been cast aside (is that the third type of "casting"--cast on, cast off, and cast aside? har har) for the time being so I can finish the sweater and socks. Plus I really want to start a semi-complex project for Christmas (not sure if it has any chance of being done by then), and I really don't think I can handle...gasp...four projects!

Well I am seriously "out of it" right now due to one of G's harebrained schemes. We drove 4 hours last night to Boston to see the Hives. Somehow through a number of e-mails amongst G's grandfather and some relative of his in Sweden, we found out that this Swedish relative is the father of the Hives' drummer. The drummer hooked us up with a pair of tickets and said we should meet him after the show. G spent Sunday morning trying to find a friend down in New Hampshire or Boston to go with him (one said he couldn't because of a "major loan" he had to close at work on Monday--I guess we are the only ones to live in eternal teenagerdom LOL). When this plan failed, I was recruited to accompany him to the show. I'm actually glad it worked out that way because it was ridiculously awesome--I'm not sure the last time I saw a band with that much energy--and well, fast loud rock 'n' roll is always a good thing. Here is a really crappy photo of the band:Actually this is what I saw most of the time, cuz i am so short:Heads.

After the show, the band was totally spent but we introduced ourselves to the drummer dude (his hilarious bandmates were like, "Ooh, is this 'the relative'?", so I called G "the relative" the rest of the night). We were able to hang out and chat with him and a couple of the other guys for half an hour or so which was interesting. They have a rather wicked sense of humor. But it is definitely odd talking to random famous people--I mean what do you really have to talk about? If it were me I would get really annoyed at having strangers hanging around all the time. But anyway, they were very nice to us despite looking like they were ready to crash and it was quite the memorable experience! Probably never to happen to me again!

Oh, and somehow we made it home and I dragged myself into work today. Although I was completely useless, so not sure what the point of that heroic gesture was. I guess you can see why I am so tired--I'm going to crash into bed now! G'night!