Yummy Yummy In My Tummy

I love Christmas. I love the yummy warm feeling in my tummy (hey, that rhymes), the cheeriness everyone seems to exude, buying – or making – gifts I just know my loved ones will treasure forever. (For the record, I too HATE that retailers start marketing Christmas right after Halloween.)

Take my weird older brother, for example. He’d much rather receive a gift that was cheap and cool than expensive and boring. Don’t believe me? Members of the jury, I give you the hands-down, smack-your-head, change-your-britches favorite Brian Bubak Christmas gift:

Yes, that’s right. The classic velvet Elvis painting. Note that to reach the heights of splendidity that is a Velvet Elvis, it must be a rendering of Jumpsuit Elvis shedding a single tear. Young, hot Elvis doesn’t cut the mustard (or peanut butter). So proud of this treasure, was my brother, that he insisted on hanging it over his marital bed for several years. This could explain my sister-in-law’s skittishness when gift-giving time rolls around.

So how does one top a Velvet Elvis? Why, with another revolutionary, of course:

The ubiquitous Che Guevara T-shirt.

Unfortunately, my quest for a Mexico-bought Pancho Villa T-shirt ended in failure. There were shrines to him all over during the Day of the Dead but just try to find a T-shirt commemorating his bloody life.

This year, I thought I’d try to get on Jane’s good side by giving them a ‘together’ gift that (hopefully) won’t make her hang her head in shame. Ann and Kay gave me the idea, the Mason Dixon Knit-a-long gave me the inspiration, and eBay gave me the required yardage.

I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m on square 7 of a 9 square afghan in log cabin style. Red in the center, then blue, grey and green alternating. I know I’ll be done with the squares before the Big Day but I don’t know if the border will make it. Don’t you just love surprises?!

Hey, where did you find those fantastic needles, you ask? Why I made them myself, thank you very much! A winter with too much time on my hands and too many power tools at my disposal ended with several new sets of needles. These are somewhere in the vicinity of size 6 and are made out of simple wooden dowels found at The Depot. Add a stop made of purple heart and you have some very pretty needles to play with.

They could only be cooler if these were little tiny Elvis heads.

What Cara started

(Required self-portrait)

My blogging is sporadic, at best, and is often severely lacking in the knitting department. So while I work up a better post, here’s my Ellen Degeneres meme as inspired by Cara and Julie.

Ooooh Mexicoooo

Having sailed down Baja with my folks as a fiesty teen, I have extremely fond memories of it. So when Bossman asked if I wanted to go on a free trip to Mexico, how could I refuse? The Baja Department of Toursim set up a press trip for seven journalists to explore the “undiscovered paradise of Baja California Sur.” We all had a good chuckle out of that since we’ve all been to and heavily promote Baja, but who are we to turn down such an offer?

I’ll spare you the boring details (because much of it was a total bore) and just share a few highlights. We spent 3 night in La Paz, which is one of my favorite places, where we toured developments and resorts – even though they knew my focus would be on boats and marinas, I had to fight tooth and nail to spend more than 5 minutes anywhere ‘unscheduled’. One of the spots they took us to was a new development on El Mogote, a peninsula across from town that is part of the natural beauty of La Paz. Now it will be a playground for the elite. My heart was breaking as we toured it because I had my first kiss on the beach there (ok, to be honest, it wasn’t my REAL first kiss – that was a couple weeks before at a disco with a 24-year-old guy who looked exactly like a skinny, curly haired George Michael…sigh…).

They fed us well though. Too well. I had to roll onto the plane. They nearly had to give me one of the seatbelt extenders. Not really. But they did feed us. A lot. This was one of the best meals. It’s the house specialty at Tequila’s Sunrise in Todos Santos, across from Hotel California (where we stayed – awesome!). It’s a poblano chile stuffed with “shrimps” and four cheeses in some yummy sauce and sprinkled with pomegranite seeds. It was just a hair spicy (I’m a total weenie) which nicely complemented the tart sweetness of the seeds. I would highly recommend it to anyone but my sister, who’s a bigger weenie than me.

It was great meeting other journalists because I still have a hard time swallowing that title. Hubbo brags about it whenever he can but it just embarrasses me. I should just enjoy the ride until they find out I’m a total fraud.

Anyway, these are my two new best buds, Diana (Dee-ana), who’s Editor for El Latino newspaper in San Diego, and Bryce, a freelancer for various pubs including Travel Age West. We were the ‘bad kids’ of the group, always chatting amongst ourselves instead of paying attention to yet another boring church or whatever they were passing off as interesting article fodder.

I brought some knitting but succeeded only in screwing it up. I bought some cream Merino from KnitPicks, died it with Kool-Aid (Cherry, Tropical Punch and Strawberry all come out the same color, FYI), and started a pair of Jaywalkers on two circulars. All the scenery and jabber conspired to make me miss a decrease somewhere and I didn’t have the energy or patience to fix it. Lesson learned: never try to knit a patterned sock while riding with nine people in an eight passenger van in Mexico. Heed my words of wisdom, ya’ll!

Now I’m back to the old grind. The socks are in a cupboard waiting to be sorted out while I knock out my brother’s Christmas throw. Just like Baja, my exciting socks are pushed out of my mind while I toil away at more mundane — but ultimately, more fulfilling — things.