I took this picture of l’Arc de Triomphe in 1995.
They beckon me; I will follow…

More Plans, more Travel…

OOH La la! The time has come to leave my troubles behind and FLY! Fly away to see what one can see! To shake it up and turn it upside down! The Muse, she beckons…

In just a little over a week, I am going to Paris! This fair city is my favorite of all outside the USA and I can’t wait. It’s been almost 10 years since I was there last and almost 4 years since I was lured overseas…

Too tempting the prospect of joining mes amis Becky et Jackie on a late Spring adventure in the City of Lights~! Paris – she is a spectacle that I hope will sweep me away!

Invigorating! Full of energy (watch out for scooters!), art and food extraordinaire! History and architecture that will make me weep with joy!

Paris…

I stayed there once before for two weeks in an apartment in Bastille. We went every day to the farmer’s market in the neighborhood to buy fresh food and flowers. Perhaps my favorite area is Marais (which you can see in yesterday’s entry) – it blends the very old (17th century?) with the very new and the continuity is astounding.

Paris…

Much of which Chicago is not. The two are sister cities, but one is the flip side of the metropolitan coin. We even have subway enclosures that are copies of their’s but you will never mistake their public transportation for ours. Theirs is Clean! It’s on Time! It’s accessible…

And the architecture! Much of Chicago was built roughly around the same time von Haussmann was tinkering with the Parisian skyline but we’ve neglected and abandoned our treasures. In the City of Lights, one will find people living in buildings that go back centuries and I marveled at the sight.

Paris…

Just the thing for a woman who does not tan! Will HE still be waiting for me outside Sacr

YAY! I got my letter!

A couple of weeks ago, I was ringing the knitting blogs and found some people were already talking about Stitches Midwest. Now, I’ve only gone once before, and I was making a video, so I’m wasn’t able to IMMERSE myself into the experience.

I’ve been told the best thing about this gathering is the CLASSES! So I upped for four and VOILA! There’s my confirmation letter – with, I’m hoping, an atta boy for enrolling early. That was the other thing people told me – enroll early because the best classes go fast. Sure enough – many were already closed when I tried to survey the listing but I think I got what I wanted.

Why do I say THINK? Because all this letter told me was that I was *Tentatively* enrolled in the classes. Awhat?

I picked these four classes:

Sat AM: “the Perfect Sleeve” taught by Jean Frost (!)
Sat PM: “Grafting with a Russian Twist” taught by Galina Khmeleva
Sun AM: “Where Do My Hands Go?” pockets as taught by Barry Klein
Sun PM: “7 Things that can Make or Break a Sweater” by Margaret Fisher

Anybody take classes before? I thought they sounded right up my alley! :)

a Tale of Two Bedrooms

If you’ve been tripping the lights over here @ChicKnits for any length of time, you’ve heard part of this tale already. I live in a *three-flat* type building where three families live stacked on top of each other.

I am the filling in the sandwich cookie.

I probably should feel special about this because without me, this building would just be a silly little two-flat, but no, I am just ordinary, just tortured…

I am the middle child of three and this has been my natural state for as long as I can remember. It is uncanny how history repeats itself.

My bedroom is over the downstairs duplex’s nursery; my bedroom is under my upstairs neighbor’s new music mixing *center*. I have lived through the teething, weaning and changing of three babies; I am now living through the live birth of rock’n’roll.

Sleep deprivation is not a good thing.

So after work last week, I hatched a plan coming home on the #66. I would flip bedrooms. By trying to sleep in an area where no one else was sleeping was sheer folly! My second, larger bedroom would now become my *real* sleep chamber instead of the work studio I was using it as. This is the area where all the adults in the building sleep. Just like those flap-jacks you find in the Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast, on any given night, we’d all be stacked and snorin’. I would restore the natural balance of the building (and not be a sh*t and fight about who could do what in their house…)

I moved all the big furniture in 3 hours. The large sweater armoire was emptied then pushed onto a folded old quilt and dragged down the hall like it was Christmas Morning and I was Rudolph tethered to the sleigh. I was so giddy I was glowing as I ran! The prospect of a good night’s sleep was just around the corner and I was going home!

Needless to say, a pile of books, mailers, photographs, yarn, cables, lights, etc. forms a huge mound in the *new* office. But under the large double window now sits my drafting table, open to the inspiration of the sky where it once only faced a boring wall. Along the short wall in the new studio, lives the yarn stash in a burst of color and promise that will hopefully egg me on to greater work. It was all over the place before and OMG, it’s bulk, enmass, I had no idea…

Downside: this place needs to be painted/and/or cleaned! (Anybody out there know the best way to clean painted walls?) Funny how it takes a move to *see* the reality of your surroundings. And by god, I need all new furniture! At least in the bedroom – when it was all crammed into the little bedroom, all those mixed up shook up styles and periods looked charming(?) but now that it’s spread around it just looks tacky. Another reason to be online as much as possible: fantasy furniture shopping!

BTW, I’m sleeping like a baby…