Bride

This dress is made out of toilet paper. Toilet. Paper.
Wow.

So True

Crochet

Awesome.

This is for Real

I laughed, I cried. This is the real thang! Stuff on cats!

Filipino 'dwarf' judge loses case

From the BBC.

The judge said he had made a covenant with his dwarf friends that he could write while in a trance and that he had been seen by several people in two places at the same time.

Judge Floro reportedly changed from blue court robes to black each Friday "to recharge his psychic powers".

In a letter to the court he said: "From obscurity, my name and the three mystic dwarves became immortal."

However, the Supreme Court said dalliance with dwarves would gradually erode the public's acceptance of the judiciary as the guardian of the law, if not make it an object of ridicule.

Road Trip!

We went on a wonderful road trip. In addition to buying many books about fiber, and several balls of yarn, we came back with a lot of wine. Our intention was to go to Portland for K to check it out. We only made it as far as Sonoma County. First, here is my favorite house in Berkeley:


Sonoma and the Russian River Valley is indescribably beautiful. We drove for hours among these wonderful little vineyards (that I understand are owned by large producers...) and stopped for tastings here and there. K drove one day and I tasted, and I drove the other and he tasted. It's easy to have too much. We really liked it there, except the people are funny. They don't mean to be. For example, at a wonderful dinner one night in a little town up there we heard the dude next to us tell the waitress about his favorite vineyard, and he concluded, "We have a lot of their Pino in our cellar." He really said that out loud! Silly humans.


One of our favorite vineyards is called Roshambo. This is a slang name for Rock, Scissors, Paper. They have a 250 page book about how to play this game. They also have great wine. The place is really Post Moderny; the kids who work there have tattoos and piercings, and the music is cool. The buildings are concrete and glass. The view of the vineyard from the main building is stunning, and you can go and sit out there and soak up the sun. They toss little plastic army men in with each purchase!


A nice guy at Roshambo told us to take a detour down the road from their vineyard so we could drive over this beautiful little bridge which crosses the Russian River. Very cool.



Pretty garden at one of the Vineyards. You can walk through for free, but tasting wine is 10 bucks! We drove on.


They harvest in less than one month we were told.


Back south over the Golden Gate bridge. The toll was 5 bucks!


The haul:

Purple Hair

I no longer have purple hair. It's strange. I am entering this strange liminal state. I thought I'd been living in one already as a graduate student, but preparing to leave the States for a year is a little like preparing to get married, or die, or something similarly long term and grown-up. I've been having serious conversations with friends, and I've been giving my stuff away. I've been feeling more and more calm, and that's good. I'm going to stuff what I can into two suitcases, and my backpack, and that will be what I have to live out of for one year. In a way, I'm beginning to feel free, what ever that means. The idea of giving up stuff for a year is actually something I'm happy about. I didn't know that would be the case.

Change

I cleaned out my office and turned in my keys today. This is happening really, really fast.