San Francisco

Am in San Francisco and will be back here again next week for company global sales meetings albeit with quiet 3 day holiday weekend in between trips. I have been safely ensconced in the Moscone Center for the last 3 days so I haven't been subjected to the unseasonably warm weather that has descended on the city by the bay. Speaking of bay - have you ever driven over the Bay Bridge? I did so on one of my last trips and it it hadn't been for the gentle assurances of an employee in the rental car with me, I'm not sure I would have made it. Over the years I have sufferered from mild to moderate anxiety when driving over the Tacoma Narrows bridge and some of the bridges in Portland. Something about all that water so far below scares me. Crossing the Bay Bridge terrified me and I drove over it at half the suggested speed limit while gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. Oh my. My mild bridge anxiety has escalated to fear. I never want to cross that bridge again. Once is enough to last me a lifetime. I am much more comfortable driving over the floating bridges in the Seattle area. The fact that two of them have sunk doesn't bother me at all.

The battery in my favorite Raymond Weil watch died and I ventured out to a downtown San Francisco shopping mall to get a replacement battery. My son doesn't wear a watch and uses the clock on his cell phone to check the time of day but that method doesn't work well for me and I was obsessed with getting my timepiece accurate again. A dear colleague who is in the first trimester of pregnancy joined me on the outing and we went into a trendy children's clothing store midroute to a jewelry store. She observed $34.00 wasn't too much to pay for a tiny pair of pants. I didn't want to tell her the baby pants would be outgrown in a matter of mere weeks but I did inform her that multiple outfits would be needed by the baby each day. Amazing how much laundry one does with a baby in the house! Neither she nor her husband have ever changed a diaper or babysat so an adventure awaits them both... I am sure they will very quickly master all the learnings that come with having a newborn and raising children! I admired the detail on an obscenely priced baby sweater but closer inspection revealed dubious execution of knitting technique. Not a surprise given mass production. I did like the scallop crocheted edging and the tree and bobble design. I took a photo so that I could design something "similar but different" someday.

Unfortunately, I have been very uninspired by the knitting projects I have been working on and the thought of flying home tomorrow with nothing to knit on is more than I can bear. I am quite fond of the design and yarn choice for the Forest Canopy shawl but Rob's comment that it looked like something an "old lady" would wear put a damper on my euphoria . I have essentially abandoned the ladybug sweater. The fair isle may be too tight in sections and I didn't have the energy to block it to see if it would be salvageable. Denial or perhaps ignorance really is bliss. I did start knitting on a puppy intarsia sweater but for the life of me couldn't figure out how to do the intarsia design. I get the "twisting" of yarns to avoid holes but my colors soon ended up opposite of where I needed them and I was too frustrated to continue with confidence. Desperate to take something on the plane with me, I grabbed some Cascade Superwash Paints to knit up Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Sweater. I wasn't sure the best cast on for it and started it using a cable cast on. I'm 2/3 finished with the garter stitch sweater and the cast on edge seems to pull in too much. Three baby sweaters started and tossed aside. I need to get my head in a better place or baby boy Miles may have to get a store-bought gift after all. Yikes.