Hi, at work now

So, I am leaving Pedlar and have found a home with Joe the art of Coffee in the Upper West Side at 85th and Columbus.  Come visit and say hello.  I will be working four days a week after the 16th of November.

So I am finally watching Twin Peaks and I am still plugging away on a few knitting projects.  I need a camera so I can start taking pictures of my work.  I spoke with a few friends that are interested in a few scarves and I am anxious to get started on them.  My room is finally more clean than ever today.  I miss the west coast and my buddies out there.  

xo

I think I am going to try and learn a cable stitch today.  I have a friend to hang with and ask questions of.

Monday I saw Little Joy, Thursday Os Mutantes, Friday was supposed to see The Gossip but only got to see like 3 songs and last night I saw Mirah.  I haven’t seen this much live music in a really long time.  I am really bummed about having miss The Gossip show due to some lame timing situation that I learned from.  I am trying to figure out where I can fly to to go and see them next.  They will be in Europe next month which gives me a little time to save if I can swing just for like 1-2 days.

Last night I also made it to Downtown Yarns, my favorite knitting store, and was happily surprised to find that some store crawl, like a cafe crawl, was going on and all yarn was 10% off!  So naturally I wanted to stock up a bit.  I found some great colors for washcloths, a nice color for another scarf that I want to practice cabling and I got some help with a yarn over that I did by mistake and didn’t know how to fix.  Jeanie was so helpful and let me know that I am a very consistent knitter but that I knit too tightly.  So I had a little coffee/knitting epiphany.  She said I needed to knit more loosely with smaller needles, if that’s the size I am going for, rather than using larger needles and keeping things tight which puts unnecessary stress on the yarn.  It’s just like up dosing while your coffee is aging and keeping a lower dose while it’s fresh! and step closer to tasty perimeters.

Sam and I are well and had a great night last night wandering in the East Village buying yarn, window shopping, talking and getting amazing arapas, my first time, at Caracas and then of course tasty cookies at the milk bar of Momofuko’s.

The house is a hold for a while.  We still don’t have furniture and the kitchen still needs it’s cabinets.  And we’re still waiting to sign a lease, it’s been over a month with no lease.  So I don’t want to pay rent until then.  Also there have been several notices on the building door about a stop work order and folks from the city wanting to inspect the building.  There was even a note on the door saying that the building will get a warrant to enter to inspect the building.  This is a historical building and the landlord, at least over a year ago, started building a 4th floor which was a big no-no.  So I am worried about getting kicked out and our landlord is so hard to reach that I don’t think we would get our deposit back or anything.  I want to actually call the city and invite them in and just at least know.  It’s really shady and I don’t like it but maybe we live here for free for a moment and then find another place?

Things are feeling much better now.  I still have a few things work out but for the most part conversations feel better with friends and I don’t feel as grumpy and upset as I have been in the past couple of weeks.  I love that the fall is here.  I need to take care of my arches so I can comfortably walk around the city and parks to enjoy the leaves and cool weather.

I was looking through my email the other day and Jet Blue sent me an email update with tickets sales.  So Sam and I found tickets to Sarasota in December!  The weather will be nicer than there and a little change for a few days will make a huge difference I am sure.

I am also trying to plan a get away to San Francisco in the next couple of weeks to visit Grandma Kati and to finally do a tour of coffee out there.  The first time I was in San Fran I was 19 or 20 visiting for a pride parade and had never really been in what I considered a large city.  I remember feeling totally overwhelmed and not enjoying being there.  Now though, I live in a huge city and love traveling and can not wait to come out and visit the west coast to see friend, family and drink a fair amount of coffee.

I am looking into school again.  I miss reading a bunch and being able to talk about it with other folks.  I miss the way my days were spent sitting at home or in a favorite cafe reading and writing for hours.  I am interested in a lot of subjects and recently have entertained the idea of focusing on english again.  I never felt very confidant in my english classes but love talking and reading and writing on this blog that I think that I could gain a lot for studying a little more.  And actually Sam and I just watched the Donald Trumbo documentary and I felt very inspired to read some more things and I guess elevate my speech or at least my wit in my writing skills.

I am thinking about France still.  I think that this next year will be good to sort out some ideas, look into health care options, research animals, butchering and cooking more at home.  Maybe even if I have the time I could travel upstate or somewhere to develop some relationship/ work relationship in exchange for meat or food of some sort.  I have been missing the dirt a lot.  The city is just not the same nor will any small town be open so late or have so many options.

flickr.com/photos/sashakking

Weird day today.  Lots of ups and downs.  Ocean was spayed, she’ll feel better soon.  Our bedroom is finally done, more cleaning and moving in tomorrow.  Anyways, here is the link to flickr, hopefully you can see it ok.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40128983@N00/

Sam and I took a trip south to a NJ shore.  I actually don’t know where we stayed but the bus ride was pleasant and the time on the beach was great.  Thank you to David and Sue for their incredibly generous hospitality, fabulous food and really great exposure to many tasty wines.

The house is coming along, though very sluggishly.  I think I still have a flickr account and will try and upload all my photos there.  The pictures in the beginning are the gross before photos and the following ones are the new nicer, I want to live here photos.

ciao!

oh yeah, I am thinking about going to france for farming stuff.  maybe I’ll stay in the states but we’ll see.

really beautiful space in back of El Beit!

I recently stopped by El Beit with a friend and had a great espresso and really nice iced coffee.  We stepped out back to grab some fresh air and I was really taken aback by the simplicity of the back porch area, both covered and uncovered.