Wednesday, March 30, 2005

hedge maze


hedge maze
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I spent my day off with Jill, Sara, Miles and Jasper at the Botanical Gardens. We had a lovely time. Miles is insanely stubborn and charming. It's amazing to me that I can have a conversation with him. I have a picture of him at three months on the wall above my desk. He was just a quivering mass of baby fat and now he's this little personality running around encountering the world and sharing his reflections on existance with everyone. He rocks. I also love that I can see little glimpses of Jill in him, which confounds me from time to time, but I love it just the same.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

what is going on here?

For some reason the last post I put on this page has shown up three times. I've tried to remove the two extras but they won't come off. I'm vey frustrated. And Matt has done something evil to my ipod and now it's completely blank and won't reload. It won't even cooperate with itunes and makes itunes so upset that it shuts down whenever the ipod gets near the computer. I am not having a good day with the electronic components in my life. If my cellphone stops working I'm just going to give up, move to southern Missouri and open up the first falafel stand on the Black River and spend my spare time in a canoe. I really mean it.

Monday, March 28, 2005

matt with the godsons


matt with the godsons
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Jill is in town. She brought the godsons with her. They travel well. Here they are with "the godfadder" (as Miles calls Matt). Cute in so many ways.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Guitar Wolf at the Creepy Crawl


jet generation
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Tonight I went to a great show. Best fucking show I've been to in ages. Matt, Katie, Zack and I went to see Guitar Wolf at the Creepy Crawl. Everyone I know was there. Well, almost everyone. I tried to hook up with Ashley before Guitar Wolf started playing, but the bouncer types had all the under 21s corralled in the back of the club and I couldn't get to her. She managed to find me durring the second(?) encore so we did get to dance together.
I totally danced my ass off. Guitar Wolf rocks harder than any other band on this side of the pacific ocean.

Bass Wolf


Bass Wolf
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Remember Kids: Love knows no boundaries, nationalities or genders! Do It! Rock and Roll!

Ashley caught the pick!


Ashley caught the pick!
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
yes, it's true. the glory of guitar wolf shine down on ashley. she is blessed.

Guitar Wolf at the Creepy Crawl


jet generation
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Tonight I went to a great show. Best fucking show I've been to in ages. Matt, Katie, Zack and I went to see Guitar Wolf at the Creepy Crawl. Everyone I know was there. Well, almost everyone. I tried to hook up with Ashley before Guitar Wolf started playing, but the bouncer types had all the under 21s corralled in the back of the club and I couldn't get to her. She managed to find me durring the second(?) encore so we did get to dance together.
I totally danced my ass off. Guitar Wolf rocks harder than any other band on this side of the pacific ocean.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

two hats


two hats
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I made both of these in January of 2005 while I was recovering from my lalaroscopic cholecystectomy.
The orange one is basically a pattern off the label of Bernat Boa, color 81605, of which a little over two balls were used. I knit it together with one skein of Lion Brand Micro Spun "coral" because I wanted a thicker hat. I just added the earflaps and the pompoms on the ends, and voila! instant crazy hat. I often wear it with a mint green coat.
The Yellow one Has been featured on this blog before, on several different heads. It's a version of Hot Head again, which is a great basic ribbed hat pattern, only I did something funky to it and ended up with this strange nodule on top. I had to make a REALLY big tassel to cover it up, otherwise I looked like I was wearing a lemon yellow nipple on my head. The base is Lion Brand Chenille and the accents are another yard sale score novelty yarn of unknown origin. I'm not sure which hat gets better reactions, but they both get plenty of attention.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

patchwork sweater


patchwork sweater
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I guess this qualifies as a work in progress since I do keep adding bits to it. It started out as a way to use up my swatches, then it sort of morphed into a sweater which I was going to give to Helen (it's mostly pink) but she declined the offer. I added a few more pieces and put it on Kimmie for the First Annual Floyd Awards Lost and Found Fashion Show. I was shocked at how big a hit this stupid little sweater was. I mean, I always thought it was kinda cool in an impractical, uncomfortable sort of way, but I had to promise Diana and Monica each one before they'd let me take it home. I'm working on two more of them right now, but they are still in the bits and pieces stage.

pink explosion: finished objects


pink explosion
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I don't have a ton of pictures of stuff I've knit. I've sold most of the scarves and given away almost everything else as gifts. I rounded up everything I could find around the house today and took some pictures. This is the pink explosion hat and scarf. I don't know the brand of the yarn, I think I bought the ball at a yard sale last summer. The hat is a variation of Hot Head by Alex Zorn from the Stitch 'n Bitch book by Debbie Stoller of Bust Magazine. Excellent publications both. Run out and buy immediately. The scarf was an afterthought. It's just a 3in wide, 4ft long strip of garter stitch. I also made a swatch for my knit quilt out of the same ball. No bit wasted!

mermaid yarn


mermaid yarn
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
This is my most recent yarn aquisition. I bought this in San Francisco at ImagiKnit (http://www.imagiknit.com) It makes me think of seaweed and mermaids and all sorts of magical fantasy fancy things. I'm going to make a cabled hat with tassels from it.

the knitted quilt


the knitted quilt
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
So this is what I decided to do with the little bits of yard- and estate-sale yarn I have aquired over the past five years. I'm just making this up as I go along, I have no idea how big or wide it will be. I plan to back it with cotton fabric and put batting in between, like a regular quilt. When it's finished it's finished, I guess, then I'll worry about the next step. I see this as an ongoing project for the rest of my life. It is already so big that I had to stretch it out on the kitchen shelves. I think it looks lovely with my fiestaware collection. Can you tell I like a lot of color?

Helen in one of my many funfur scarves.

This is an example of my scarves. I made about twenty of them between December 2004 and mid January 2005. Most were 2x2 ribbed 16 stitch on fairly big needles (10, 11, 12, or 15) with sport weight acrylic and funfur knitted together. Very basic and very boring, but I was on some serious pain medication and I couldn't concentrate long enough to follow any sort of a pattern. They turned out well, considering. They sold well too.

More knitting obsession


stash #2
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I buy a lot of my yarn at garage sales and estate sales, so I have many little tiny balls of leftover acrylic in strange colors. I had no idea what to do with all of it for quite some time.

As promised, my knitting obsession...


stash #1
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
... detailed here for you. This is part of my yarn stash. I still consider myself a begining knitter, even though I've been knitting for about five years now. As you can see, I have a ton of acrylic and cotton. I'm just starting to branch out into animal fibers and I'm still kinda obsessed with funfur. I make mostly scarves and dishcloths. My mother's dear friend Beth sold some of my scarves this winter at her shop (link coming soon) and since I wasn't working due to that whole pesky recovery-from-surgery process I had a lot of time to knit scarves. I've branched out into hats and I am considering getting into socks next.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Boring yacking, then a little rant.

Saturday lunches are usually busy shifts, and it was nice to dive right back in after such a long time off. My shift was good and afterwards I went to Toni's to watch a movie.
The only two reasons to see Secret Window are Johnny Depp, cause he's pretty to look at, and John Turturro, cause he's funny with a southern drawl. Otherwise it was a total waste of two hours. Toni and I talked thru the whole thing and still got the entire plot. And they killed the dog. I cannot stand it when they kill the dog in a horror movie. I won't watch rape scenes or animal cruelty scenes in movies. Nothing pisses me off more than gratutious violence directed at animals. I'm possibly more offended by the "kill the dog" parts in horror movies because it's a cop-out as well as unecessary violence than any other lame-ass plot device. But only a tiny bit. I'm not saying that gratutious violence doesn't have its place, I love a good bloody zombie movie, and I'm not for censoring anything, I just don't want to watch dogs getting hacked to pieces, or with their throats slit on people's front porches. Okay. Enough ranting.
After the movie I went up to Mangia to see The Vultures. I love The Vultures. They get better every time I see them. Ryan wails on guitar and Ashley's getting more comfortable with her voice. I'm gonna go see them tomorrow at Pixie 9 too, after brunch, of course. Now to bed.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Jessica's fan club


the screaming fans
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
We waited over an hour to hear Jessica sing and everyone was so stoked. She really does a mean Nelly. Then the Karaoke guy got all rude and played the wrong song. I have no idea who the creepy guy behind Diana is.

Nothing says St. Patrick's Day like a little Karaoke.


Karaoke
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Too bad paul missed out on this one. Andy and Ducky would have given him a run for his dancin' money.

St. Pat's window


The whole sick crew
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Here we have the whole crowd. Note how surly Andy and Jonathan were getting at this point. Nothing could calm them down but a little Karaoke.

Kimmie and Andy in the window.


Kimmie and Andy
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I've never really been a huge fan of St. Patrick's Day. I'm not Irish, and the major durnken Holidays (mardi gras, St. Pat's, Superbowl Sunday ) have always meant rowdy customers to me. But yesterday was fun. After my shift ended I hung out in the window with these fools for a while. Andy is my Hero. You should have seen his shoes.

Monday, March 14, 2005

sunday

It's really rare for me to be on the receiving end of Sunday brunch. I was today. I went to MoKaBe's with Clancy. We feasted and talked to the newly married J.J. and drank a ton of coffee. I agreed for some reason to play kickball with Zack and Katie on their tower grove park kickball league team. I must admit I was a disappointment. I sucked at kickball in grade school and I'm worse now. Clancy and I went grocery shopping, made chili, ate dinner and then had a spa evening. We gave Zack's hair a hot oil treatment, all three of us had facials, and then we ate girl scout cookies and watched dvds of Firefly, which I could quite possibly become addicted to, ala my little "Buffy" problem. I'm back at work tomorrow, double shift. I hope the new Megatokyo comic is posted before I have to go in to Blueberry Hill. I need a laptop. It would make my life much easier. I could just pop into the Bread Co and wifi myself to webcomics-reading bliss. yar.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Home Again

I'm back in St. Louis folks, the vacation is over, sniffle, sniffle.
I got in last night around seven. I was supposed to get in at 5:30 but everything was late out of O'Hare yesterday. The flight was awful. I was on a plane with about forty female presbyterian children's ministers (who were singing and clapping and holding hands and praying) and two loud hoosiers from Wichita (who kept making stupid coments about the Cardinals). The plane landed twenty minutes late, but then we sat on the tarmac for another twenty minutes waiting for a gate. My luggage arrived ahead of me, and when my mom tried to rescue it from the rotating conveyor belt thingy the security guy got snippy with her. Mom let me drive her car to make up for the bad flight so the trip wasn't a total wash.
We went to meet up with Dad and Matt at Cicero's, but of course we were so late that Matt had to go straight to work. We ended up eating at Blueberry Hill, so I got to see some of my friends last night. I didn't realize how much I would miss you stinky people.
I went out to breakfast with Shawna, Boo Boo and Matt this morning, then I came home and opened up all the boxes I sent back from New York and San Francisco. Yay! My books arrived fine, all the comics got here safely, the treasures are in one piece!! I'm going to see Helen and Alan's circus performance at four. I'll put up photos.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Chicago Chicago

So I made it to Chicago. The flight this time was easy, no pushy guy in the seat next to me being cranky the whole time. The movie was Finding Neverland, which was surprisingly good, in a heartwarming sort of way. Annie picked me up at the L station and we went to Penny's for noodles. We're gonna take it easy tonight, stay in and watch a movie. If Amanda lets me use her computer tomorrow I will deliver more interesting photo blogs.

just so you know...

I might be unable to post for the next few days, I'm not sure what the upload situation in Chicago will be like. Hope you all have enjoyed this so far. I'm having fun with it.

tide pool again


tide pool again
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I was just totally obsessed with these. I'd seriously never seen anything so amazing. After we left the tide pools Katey and I walked down the beach for about three miles just looking at the sea and the sky and smelling the air. I like the Pacific. The weather was incredible, it was about 67 degrees and sunny, just a little breeze. My sister called and informed me that in Chicago she was enjoying 20 degree weather with snow flurries. I'll be in Chicago tomorrow. I concentrated extra hard on soaking up as much sun as possible. Did I mention that I was barefoot?

Ocean Life


i was obsessed
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
We walked across the beach to these tide pools and rock formations. The tide was out and all the mussels and annemones were just hanging out so everyone could walk up and touch them. They were so cool that Katey and I spent about 45 minutes poking them and taking about 30 thousand pictures of them.

Rocks at Sutro Bath Ruins


Rocks at Sutro Bath Ruins
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
This is looking out from the ruins across to the north side.

Pipe at Sutro Bath Ruins


Pipe at Sutro Bath Ruins
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
This is one of the giant pipes left in the ruins. that joint is about six inches in diameter.

Sutro Bath Ruins


Sutro Bath Ruins #2
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Hey y'all. Sorry this post is so late. Flickr (my photo share page) was down all night and I just got my pictures from today's adventure loaded. Katey Joy and I went to the Sutro Bath Ruins, which is one of the most amazing things I have seen in my entire life. Once upon a time (in the 1890s) there was an amazing bath house on Ocean Beach. When it opened in1896 it was the largest public bath in the world. It had 7 swimming pools- six salt and one freshwater-500 dressing rooms, and could accomodate 20,000 people at a time. The whole building had a two-acre 100,000-pane glass roof. It closed in 1954 due to lack of patronage, and burned down in 1966. I wish it was still open because it sounds amazing. The ruins are so cool, just the foundations remain, but there are all these huge pipes and grates sticking up out of the cement.

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Almost home

The walk back to the house was long and uphill, but every walk in San Francisco is long and uphill. I'm finally coming to terms with it. Kate talked to her sister on the phone almost the whole way, which left me free to take lots of pictures. I think this was one of the best days I've had on my entire vacation. The weather is so awesome I'm kinda balking at the idea of leaving for Chicago on Tuesday. March in Chicago... yuck. I'm only going for the company.

the perfect day continues


backyard, open house
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
After all that walking we headed back up the hill. We stopped for a minute at a couple of open houses. This one was cute, and I do mean small. Still, it was technically a two bedroom, with gorgeous hardwood floors, a fabulously equiped kitchen and a cute back yard. The listing price was $675,000. OMG. The other house was a two unit with a tiny basement apartment. I talked to both the realtors and they said that stuff goes FAST out here. They said they hold two open houses and set a deadline for offers. Crazy.

Maggie Mud's Ice Creamery


double fisted
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Of course, no outing is complete without ice cream. Maggie Mud's has vegan ice cream, gelato, sorbet and other things of the frozen delicious variety. I had chocolate hazelnut gelato (duh!) that tasted exactly like nutella. Kate went for the double scoop of toasted coconut and pumpkin. All flavors were delectable.

Alemany Flea Market


flea market
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
I bought a bunch of back issues of Animerica while Kate looked for sunglasses and vintage postcards. No bargains were to be found for Kate, and we both got miffed at the guy selling old photographs for a dollar apiece. Kate found an amazing pressent for Winnie.

a perfect day.


brunch at geranium
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Kate and I got up early and climbed the hill. We crossed over to Cortland and joined the ranks for Sunday morning rituals. We went to Geranium for brunch. We shared a Caesar Salad with shaved parmesan then I had Eggs Florentine and vegetarian bacon while Kate had the Tofu Scramble with wheat toast. I drank a mimosa. It's so nice to be on the recieving end of brunch for once. We then walked down the other side of the hill to the Alemany Flea Market.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

It was the kingfisher beer. I swear!


indian pizza
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
...or maybe it was the indian curry pizza or the intense uphill-at-an-alarming-pace trek home, but I am insanely buzzed. Kate and Chris just left to go to a play and Ebbe took the dog out and maybe we are leaving like now to go see 3D B Movies but I definatley need more beer. I think I'll go get some.

Saturday afternoon

Sorry there was no post last night, the network was down out here, Not that anyone was actually looking for news I'm sure. Last night we watched Katey and Ebbe's video footage of their trip. Central America is beautiful, especially the places in Nicaragua they went to. I got a little emotional watching the footage of Costa Rica, but they said they felt really safe while they were there. Kate's going to Hawaii after I leave here. She's been showing me all of her fashion choices for the trip all afternoon. I was contemplating putting a photo of her in the new swimsuit on the blog, but then I realized there's quite a few pictures of Kate lookin' sexy on the blog, so I decided against it. Sorry. Not much else going on. Chill day. I got all excited about the new Megatokyo comic posted yesterday. I also thought about buying copicmarkers at the Japanese bookstore yeaterday, but couldn't justify dropping the cash. I wonder if anyone I know has some, that I could try out. Erg, this post is BOORRING. Sorry guys.

Friday, March 04, 2005

Sea Lions at Pier 39


Sea Lions at Pier 39
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
This was really cool. The sea lions were just all laying around in a pile barking at eachother and at the seagulls that kept trying to land on them. They would get up and hop over to different rafts, but they all just ended up in a pile. They sound like hungover old men just waking up in the morning. Except somehow cute.

At the penny arcade


Boys on a pony
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
There is this awesome museum with penny arcade games and rides from the turn of the century. We spent a good 45 minutes in there. Steve even played a couple games of Addam's Family Pinball, just like at home. This picture was their idea, not mine.

Friday with the boys

I met up with steve and Casey today. we went to fisherman's wharf. Here they are in front of a WWII submarine. After we looked around at the boats in the harbor we went into the Musee Mechanique.

time lapse


virgin of guadalupe #1
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
the network was down yesterday so i didn't get anything up at all. Katey and Ebbe are back. I went to lunch with Shira and ate burritos. Mostly then I just talked to the kids about their trip to central america.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

2bads corpse disposal service


2bads corpse disposal service
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
grayskull loses his wits and is unwillingly dragged to his doom by 2bad. Sk8 was on the phone with steve and had no control over the situation. I swear, no zombies have been involved in any aspects of our drunken debauchery, no matter how it looks.

the tree that I love


Trees i love
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
San Francisco is very beautiful, but everybody here is so stinkin' healthy and vegan and athletic that it just makes me want to drink tons of beer and sit around on my ass in front of a computer or in a coffeehouse with a book and heavy cream in my coffee. nyah. I guess I'm just a contrary individual. Huh. Mom was right all those times. I just have to be difficult.
So shoutouts go like this:
ashley, i can't wait for our birthday. sorry about the snow.
bean, when I get back we'll hang out and you can look at all my photos while I play with yer baby.
mattie, thanks fer talkin to me on the phone alla time.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Montgomery Street


Downtown San Francisco
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Chris and I took the BART downtown today so we could go to the Cartoon Art Museum. It was supposed to be free today, but of course we read the website wrong and it wasn't free. I didn't want to pay because I was so stoked to be getting in for free that I got really pissed about having to pay, which is totally ridiculous but I get silly sometimes, sufice to say that after a brief period of pouting I coughed up the dough and went in. It was totally worth it. They have tons of originals of comic strips and boards from all kinds of comic books. There was a Debbie Drescher hand colored 4 page story, lots of Crumb and Adrian Tomine. I saw originals of Krazy Kat and started missing Drew Bell. They had the originals of the two page layout in L&R #50 where Maggie feels like she's getting smacked in the face by everyone she's ever known... (933k 933k) Anyway, it was cool. We then went and got some tacos. We were at the comic museum for almost 3 hours. I admire Chris's resolve. Most people I know would have left me there after about 45 minutes. I'm gonna make a quiche for dinner tonight. Maybe we'll get drunk.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Kate impersonates Peaches


Kate impersonates Peaches
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
After a miraculous recovery from death, (Not Involving Zombies! I swear!) Kate modeled her favorite outfit, tall boots and men's boxer briefs. She's a stone fox.
Kate got great response on flickr from this photo.

Kate's suicide


Kate'sa suicide (also faked)
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
Kate came out of the bathroom to find Chris dead and was so distraught that she killed herself. In the oven. Please notice how she artfully slammed the oven door on herself as well. She was drunk.

Chris's suicide


Chris's suicide (faked)
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
After dinner chris was so full that he came home and killed himself. With a breadbag. Dude.

Sushi leftovers


Sushi leftovers
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
...and here they are. Oh yeah, the brown bags in the previous photo are because No Name Sushi hasn't got a liquor liscence, so it's byob. You have to drink it out of the bag tho' which I think is wierd. And there may have been a corkage fee. whatever.

Dying batteries, sushi dinner


Dying batteries, sushi dinner
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
After a tough day of cleaning we went out for sushi dinner, but the batteries in the camera were dying. Chris tried to expand the life left in them, but only succeded in creating some very fuzzy photos. The only pictures I got of dinner were of the leftovers,which sucks because I'm obsessed with photographing my food.

cleaning day


cleaning day
Originally uploaded by sarahkate.
We spent most of today fixing the house up for Katey and Ebbe's return to the S.F. As you can see, Kate was cleaning the sink and Chris had just completed the manly task of moving the stove out to clean the floor under it. I did the fridge and bathroom, and was therefore exempt from all other kitchen related stuff and was free to take pictures.