Yosemite in Autumn

We arrived at Yosemite Friday night, about 8pm, hauled everything into our tent cabin in Curry village, and got pizza at the cafe. The highlight of the evening were the raccoons, who came right up under the cafe tables, looking for something to scrounge.



Saturday morning was drizzly and misty. The walls of Yosemite Valley were barely visible above us. It reminded me of Portland, and I thought- this is beautiful! I could live in Portland again, I could do this...


Kate and Bridget got raccoons, inspired by the previous evening.


Since it was raining, we (and everyone else) spent the morning riding the shuttle bus around to various indoor exhibits, including the museum, visitor center, Ansel Adams gallery, and the Miwok village replica.

Here is Bridget, waiting for the bus.

One great benefit of the rain was that there was actually water in Yosemite Falls. The last time we were here, in August, I kept pointing to a dark spot on the cliff, and saying, see, in winter, there's a huge waterfall there! Although it wasn't huge, it was lovely to see it, and it only lasted the day.




Apparently the waterfall inspired everyone to stick out their tongues.


It began to clear, a little, and we could finally see Half-dome.

Here are Bridget and Kate waiting for the bus outside the Awanhee.


After a cold night, Sunday was clear and glorious. We took the bus to the road to Mirror Lake.

Much time was spent looking up.


Mirror Lake is becoming Mirror Meadow, turns out.


Requisite group fishbowl photo.

The rest of the day was fabulous and sunny, but I ran out of camera batteries. We had lunch on the river at Housekeeping Camp, and then Ice Cream at Yosemite Lodge. We walked over to the Swinging Bridge (which was dissapointingly stable), and played at the beach there, in the golden meadows below Yosemite falls.

I am Dead

I struggled to the end…


but was no match for mhardersen’s deadly weapon


The rescue dogs found only my grizzly remains.

I SITZ, I KNITZ, I KILLZ (I HOPZ)

I decided to enter the fray as a warrior in Hat Attack 2: The death hat always knocks twice.
The idea is simple. The arms dealer distributes the plans for your weapon, you acquire yarn from your local armory, engage in weapon-grade knitting, fire your weapon, and assassinate your target before your assassin cuts you down. With hats.



This is my weapon.
I launched it at Nederlass on 9-18-08 at 0900 hours. I am still alive.

To be honest, I'm not crazy about the pattern and I won't mind too much if my target has finished her hat before I kill her, because otherwise I will have to finish it and kill her target too. I will probably donate my own death hat to the 7 Long project (hats for the UCSF Pediatric Cancer Unit). I have a link to this, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. Maybe the lull of impending demise?

More my style? Proving I have poor judgement?

Mrs. Dumbledore

You like ‘em powerful and brilliant. And why not? A guy like this, you can have intelligent conversation with, laugh with, and you know he can protect you. Sure, he may have a weakness for power, but he’s got that under control. And sure, he let his sister die, but he learned from that. And sure, he harbors a secret, forbidden love for a man widely known to be his mortal enemy, but…well, no, that’s actually a pretty big obstacle. Good luck with that.

Cheating

Here is stage 0, last year. See how much progress I've made in negative 1 day!

A garden project

I've noticed that having WIPs on my ravelry page keeps me working on my knitting projects, instead of letting them get buried under things on my desk and disapearing for months. So I thought I might try the same thing with a garden project, and see if this helps me keep it watered and not buried under weeds....

So, here is stage 1:

This is 3 flats of elfin thyme planted between the pavers of the patio that I put in last summer, and put thin soaker hose in between a couple of months ago. I had tried planting corsican mint seeds, but the weeds won out. So, the idea is that this will fill in, and all be green in between the pavers. We'll see how it goes, this gardening WIP.

WooHoo, I'll be published...

I finished the Reed obituary for Matt, at the very last minute in good Reedie fashion. They changed it around a little to match the format they have for obits, but it's pretty much the same as my version. I also made this blog

I posted the newspaper and Reed obituaries there, and the idea is that people can add comments after they read the obituary, or the family can add information about Matt and the kids, or whatever.

When I was trying to think of what to write about Matt's time at Reed, I remembered one of the first days we were there, up in his tiny room on the 3rd floor of Kerr, and he showed me how he had opened the pencil drawer of the battered wooden desk, when he moved in, and someone had scrated "matriculate elsewhere" into the wood.