And a lovely time was had

I so wanted to blog yesterday about the wonderful evening that I had with Rachael, but had promised myself that I'd take the day to Get Things Done on my paper (as we are about to be descended upon by various relatives; but more on that later)(you will note that I also have not responded to anyone's very nice comments -- this is why). So here it is.

I had (for once) an easy and relatively stress-free drive up to Torrance. Only one accident, and it was to the side of the road by the time I got to it, so all was well. The major tragedy was when I realized, halfway across the Marine base (which always feels like a huge geographic boundary to me) that I'd forgotten my camera. But by then, it was far too late to turn around and go back. So I settled in to listen to my fun audiobook and anticipate finally getting to meet Rachael.

I arrived at her hotel (having not gotten lost) just as she called to check in with me, and picked her up. We headed for somewhere that was advertised online as "Old Town Torrance". Not so much with the Old Town, and the streets were rather rolled up, but we found a yummy Italian place and settled in (both being starving, me because I'm always starving, and she because it was actually 9:30 in her stomach's time zone). We so settled in (helped along, in my case, by an amazing glass of wine -- Ravenswood Zinfandel, must try to find some) that we completely forgot to take pictures of the shawls until long after the sun had set. Luckily, the restaurant was fairly empty, so we set up the shawls on a table and Rachael snapped away. We even got the hostess to take pictures of us wearing them (she clearly thought we were wacky; I wasn't sure I'd be able to explain the difference between "wacky" and "knitter" to her, so I didn't try). Rachael sent me the pictures (thank you!).
That's mine on the left and hers on the right.

It was great fun to see how differently the shawl turned out in two different BMFA yarns. She'd used (correct me if I'm wrong, Rachael) their merino lightweight yarn in one of the Raven colorways with lovely green undertones. I'd used Geisha in the Raven colorway that was all shades of black. Her yarn held the blocking so much better than mine, but, as she pointed out, the geisha had more spring to it (the silk, maybe?). It turned out, inadvertently, to be a nice exercise in the implications of yarn choice for the final product.
And here we are, wearing them.

But really, the best part of the evening wasn't getting the shawls together, it was getting to sit down and chat in person with someone I've been emailing with since we starting knitting these shawls at the same time. I was especially touched that she was sharing her second anniversary with me (but Hubby's out here now!). It's always so nice when someone you only know electronically turns out to be a great person in real life, too.

I also got two wonderful gifts. The first is some yarn that I haven't been able to take a picture of yet, both because I've been working on that paper (did I mention?), and because I keep petting it and rubbing it against my face when I do have time to do other things, which is not conducive to picture-taking. I'm trying to figure out whether it would be weird to knit a balaclava out of it so I can keep it on my cheeks at all times. (You know, reading that over in black and white pretty much answers my question.) The second was to cause me to remember, in the course of a lovely discussion about our various dogs and their personality quirks, that Tilly is, indeed, a puppy. And that a lot of her stuff is puppy stuff, and will be grown out of, handled correctly. She's not a roly-poly (why can't I make that look right?) puppy, and I tend to forget that. Thanks, Rachael!

Today Rick's parents arrive for the weekend. We're taking them camping in the Lagunas tomorrow night, and they leave on Monday. Then on Tuesday, my parents arrive so they can be here for Older Daughter's graduation from her school at the kids' spring concert, and they leave on Friday. So I'll be running about madly for the next little while. I'll be sure to remember the camera this weekend though, so keep an eye out for pictures of camping.