Some of us at work are trying to be good and eat something healthy once in a while, so we came up with a plan to have one of us bring a salad once a week to share.
Today is my day, and here is my salad. It’s a chopped salad, something I never heard of before coming to California, but there you have it. The inspiration for this salad is the California Citrus salad from Claim Jumper.
I really don’t measure anything, but these are approximations:
— Dressing —
2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
4-5 Tbsp Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 tsp dry mustard
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
— Salad —
1/2 -1 head Lettuce
1 Avocado, chopped
1/4 Cup Walnuts, chopped
1/2-3/4 Cup Crumbled Blue Cheese
1/4 Cup Dried Cranberries
1 Granny Smith Apple, chopped
1 Cucumber, peeled & seeded, chopped
1 can Mandarin Oranges, drained
3 Green Onions, chopped
Put salad in bowl, toss. Add dressing, toss again. Share. Eat.

Wendy got some new boots. Makes me miss my boots. I have these great black leather and green suede cowboy boots, but they don’t fit anymore. I can’t give them away though, in case a miracle happens and they suddenly fit me again…
I also have some green suede moccasins. I think I should dig them out, they were fun.
My favorite green shoes are my chuck taylors – autographed by Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger from (at the time) General Public. Can’t get rid of those either.
Strange thing is, I really only wear two pair of shoes. My brown suede Birkenstock Alton’s and the same shoes in black leather. They are that comfy. If I have to wear a suit one day, I’m in trouble.

When is there going to be a new Buffy? This is really boring, and I already saw that Gilmore Girls.
Got my needle, picking up and tinking back around and around and finally going forward again. I misread the intructions twice and had to tink. Now it’s going to move slowly, but at least I am just knitting, no more purling. It’s not that I don’t like it, I just haven’t found my way with purling and I don’t know any other knitters to compare!
And I am sure this month’s Knitting Meetup will not happen, Orange County is just not going to meet up.

I had to put the shawl on hold til Saturday when I can get a longer needle. I think I will pick up the 120cm one for this project. I have been trying to use a 29″ and a 24″ together, but I don’t like it.
I started working on the celtic spiral socks though, and they are progressing nicely. I am about half-way through the first cuff. When I am done, I will post my interpretation of the pattern, but not before contacting the source of the chart and asking if I can share.
I received a bunch of books yesterday from the Interweave clearance sale, including Alice Starmore’s Aran Knitting. There’s some stuff in there that I will make, maybe one of the shawls of aran weight wool would make a nice gift, and a good place to practice cables before starting a cabled sweater where gauge matters more!

I finished the center panel of the shawl tonight. I am thrilled that there will be no more purling after this. My left thumb gets tired of purling which is why it took so long to get to this point, I think.

It is being carefully watched over by sock monkey. Space monkey is, however, staring off into space. I don’t know what sock monkey is doing to space monkey, so don’t ask. 🙂

Saw this while knitting and reading the LA Times at Sushi Time. That’s pretty neat, I am going to have to spend some time there. I think I only have one volume of a two book set of Mastering The Art of French Cooking that I picked up for a quarter at a friends of the library sale, but I have always only used it for reference. This woman is preparing the whole thing. Check this out:
The Julie/Julia Project

On my way home from work tonight, I stopped off for some sushi-takeout and while I waited for my food I knit a row on my shawl. My husband has taken a job that is about 4 miles from home, so I no longer get to knit while he drives our carpool. Such a bummer, I lose a good 45 min to an hour of knitting a day now that I have to drive myself to work. So I knit at any chance I get.
The sushi-woman saw me pull out my knitting while I was waiting, and came over to see what I was making. She really liked the color and asked me to bring it back so she can see how I am doing each time I go in for sushi. I usually stop in at least once a week, but don’t usually bring my knitting because I always order the same thing and call it in. Today I felt like something different, but once I got inside I ended up ordering the same thing anyway. (Spicy Tuna Roll and a Foothill Roll, in case you are wondering.
The shop is called Sushi Time, and Foothill Ranch is my town.)
So, that was kind of cool. I have someone actually interested in what I am making.
What was silly is that I went to lunch at Sakura in Culver City and had such good sushi for lunch. I had a scallop sushi, tuna, and sea urchin and they were so fresh. MMMM I wish I could find the good scallops around my home. I haven’t found a fish market that sells dry scallops. The ones I had from Nova Scotia this past summer were so fresh and sweet. The ones you can buy here have been preserved and taste nothing like real ones.

I found a chart for a very pretty celtic spiral sock
here. I started swatching it last night with some Kroy in a natural color, and some Regia Stretch in a forest green. I am doing the background in the lighter color, and will either only do the cuff in pattern with a green foot, or if it goes easily, I will do a pattern down the top of the foot.
These are for a gift for my best friend’s mom, who has a birthday around Mother’s Day, so I have to get started on them.

Why is it that people think war protesters are against ‘The Troops’? I just heard some poor woman on the radio sobbing that her son is in Iraq and those of us that are against the war should stop protesting because we should be supporting the troops. Huh?
Wouldn’t the best thing for the troops be standing on deck in the port of San Diego cleaning windows or the runway or lubing a jet or something, with no one firing on them? Do people really think that one can’t be against the war without being against the soldiers? Holy crap, I don’t want to be a soldier at any cost. I am so grateful that these people have volunteered to do this work for me, and I want them to come home. In fact, I wish their idiot leader had never sent them in the first place.
And while I’m at it, when these soldiers do come back, they better be taken care of, medically and educationally. I am still sick from the news of the last gulf war where it was denied that some soldiers were even sick for years, even though it was clear that these guys were sick. A big chunk of that $75 Billion should be going to the VA.
I am sure she has heard nothing but the shouting of a bunch of unemployed hippie-wanna-bees pounding their drums instead of the views of any of the individuals in the crowds. I wish I could find that woman I heard on the radio and buy her dinner and explain my view. Maybe she would understand that we all know that her son didn’t make the decision to go to war, and that we are against the one who did make that decision. Not against the troops.

I am still working on the center panel of my shawl. I haven’t been having as many errors but still once in a while I lose a stitch and it’s making me crazy. The shawl is for me, so I just march on. I have 56 rows to go, and really want to finish this before Monday, but I don’t see how I can.
Today is the day of the parade when the Swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, and a friend who lives there has invited us to go. I am really going because I like bagpipes – I refer to swallows as ‘those damn birds that leave crap all over my windowsills’. No one ever mentions that the swallow also return to Foothill Ranch and build nests above my bedroom windows and that I can’t touch the damn things so my windowsills get full of dust and crap that they drop while they build there mud nests. What is the big deal with a bunch of birds? Don’t they all migrate? When I lived in Indianapolis, it was Canadian Geese leaving so much crap on the ground you could skate through it.
Anyway.