Halloween Cards!

I had a lot of fun making halloween cards this year. My favorite halloween card was the one I made for my mom and dad. My mom really likes pointilism, so I figured I'd try to recreate pointilism in paper. It took a tremendous amount of time, but it was worth the effort.

Some of my other halloween cards had a sort of mondrian theme I seem to be following lately.


Then I started experimenting with circles!

Another one of my favorites involved weaving paper!


Now I have to start on my Christmas cards, and possibly Thanksgiving cards as well!

Halloween Hucks!

I signed up for a Halloween ultimate frisbee hat tournament a while ago, and today was the day! I woke up early, took Navi for a lovely morning stroll, threw my stuff together, and headed into the city. I got off the Bart at the civic center, and pedaled through the city to the presidio. When I arrived, I was told that the fields were closed because it had rained the day before. I was pretty sad, but then people started saying, "lets just have the tournament on Ocean Beach!" So everyone packed up, and headed over to Ocean Beach, and the day was actually a blast! It was a pleasure to play barefoot in the sand. The weather was extraordinary; it was 75 degrees, sunny, not very windy, and it filled you up with with a happy sort of warmth.

The team uniforms were theme costumes. My team was the pirates. I had a sash of red material, raggedy shirts and shorts, a bandana, and a little cardboard curved sword that I had made tucked into my sash. One guy on my team went all out, and looked like he had come straight from olden pirate-y times. It was pretty incredible. The other teams were clowns, animals, zombies, and super heroes! It was a lot of fun to play with crazy costumes, and everyone was really happy. I had never played beach ultimate before, but it was a lot of fun. I got invited to play with a team at a beach tournament about an hour south of here the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I think I'll play! I didn't take any photographs because my team didn't have enough women - I was always on the field, even during my team's bye! When my team wasn't playing, I found out that another team was really short on women, too. They asked me to play for them so I donned a rabbit costume complete with a bunny tail pinned to the back of my shorts, and played with them for a game! It was a really great day, and I'm really tired. Playing in the sand is a much different workout than playing on the grass.

After the tournament ended, some of my newly gained friends told me about some pickup that they attend, and I made a mental note to go to those pickups to see how they are! Then I hopped onto my bike, pedaled through the city, and headed home. I made garlic chicken for dinner, which was fantastic, and then Navi and I had another lovely stroll together. At one point in the night, I walked past a mirror, and saw something weird stuck to my butt. Turns out I had forgotten that I had pinned a bunny rabbit tail to the back of my shorts, and had been walking around with it all day long!

Sewing Class!

My sewing class that came with my sewing machine was tonight from 6 to 9 pm. Pam said she'd come along to help me understand everything. We also weren't sure how well I'd be able to keep up with my finger, so we figured if it gave me a ton of hassle, Pam would do the sewing and whatnot, and then teach me when my finger was better. We met near campus, and I drove us over. We arrived, and the lady started right away. We learned what parts of the sewing machine to keep clean, how to change the feet, what parts of the machine to oil, and all sorts of information about additional feet, how to do blind hems, how to program stitches so the machine can spell your name, and other things. It was very interesting, and helped me a lot.

After class, we passed lush gelato, and decided to go get some. I love lush gelato because they have such unusual flavors, like honey cardamom, peppercorn, orange chile....or pear basil. They switch up the flavors a lot, too. I have to take my family members there sometime! There is one in North Berkeley that is close that Pam and I frequent often. I ended up getting honey cardamom and coffee with chocolate chunks in a cone. They make their cones every day and they have a hint of cinnamon in them. Not enough that you taste it while eating your gelato, but enough that you catch a hint of it if the end of your cone is gelato free. It is so delicous. We were very content, and headed home afterwards. Yay!

Stitches Removed!

Today, I finally got my stitches removed! I was very happy to have them taken out because they looked so gross. They look like you have the bodies of black flies stuck in your laceration (the knot) and their legs are all sticking out (the ends of the stiff black thread). I hated them so much. They'd also get caught on everything, and I couldn't put a band aid on to keep them covered so they couldn't catch onto things because I had been told to keep the cut very dry. I was also hoping that I might be able to straighten my finger out a little more once they were removed.

The doctors kept calling the wrong ER for my files, so I ended up having to wait for an hour, watching people who arrived later than me and had later appointments get dealt with first. It was very frustrating. Eventually, the nurses figured out that they were calling the wrong place, and got things straightened out. They brought me back, and spent 5 minutes removing the stitches and ushered me out the door, apologizing for the chaos. Now I have no stitches, but unfortunately I still can't straighten my finger out completely. Oh well. It will heal with time.

On the plus side, Navi is walking around a lot better now. I've been watching her weight so that she's losing a little weight (she was a bit overweight), and I've been feeding her the supplements. She is having an easier time getting up, and she's not so reluctant to go on walks; she's got her "pep" back! It fills me with joy to see the improvement. I also really like the new vet because they took the time to email me and follow up on how Navi was doing. I guess I have a new, permanent vet while I'm in the area!