Special Day!

Happy Birthday to Me!  I am 54 today.  It is a lovely day, warm and sunny, slight breeze, I had my breakfast on the deck.  I spent a couple hours this morning vacuuming all the whirligigs off the decks, my girlfriends are coming tonight with sushi and their recorders, and we will all play Baroque trios and eat sushi, and drink Margaritas and life doesn’t get any better than that.  And I spent about a half hour catching up on all the drama of my son’s 19 year old life, feeling really grateful I am 54.  It was lovely to just spend some time listening to his tales of adventure…

I have spent almost 50 of my 54 years living in NJ.  Although I was born in PA, I’d say I pretty much qualify as a Jersey Girl.  Summers down the shore, the pine barrens, and Bruce…  Up until last July, I’d never been to a Bruce Springsteen concert, (he is so New Jersey), as a matter of fact, I’d never been to any rock concert except for a lone Beach Boys concert in High School.  So, last night, I went to my third Bruce Springsteen concert in 9 months.  This one was totally unexpected, when we purchased the tickets for the show last month in Philadelphia, we were originally trying to get tickets for last night’s performance at the Meadowlands.  You may have read about the Ticket Master brouhaha, which is why we ended up in Philadelphia, but after registering a complaint with the state Attorney General, my step sister went into a pool of complainers and through a lottery ended up with two tickets for last night’s performance.

OK, I’m not a rock fan, or a Springsteen groupie, I don’t even know any of the words to any of his songs.  But this was an amazing performance.  We were sitting actually behind the stage, in the 26th row, we were so close we could see the sweat flying.  The behind the scenes guitar swaps, sometimes mid-song, and the tuning crew behing the stage, were fascinating, and the drummer, was the 18 year old prodigy son of Max Weinburg, the E Street Band’s regular drummer who is also the drummer for Conan O’Brien and he was tied up on the west Coast doing a taping of the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Jay Weinburg, the son, was unbelievable to watch, and we could see the massive band-aids on his fingers.  He never missed a beat, and the playfulness of the band with this youthful member was electrifying.

Onto my creative adventures.

First of all, I got the scarf warp on, pretty effortlessly with the AVL warping wheel.  And I started to weave one of the scarves.  It doesn’t have the same color clarity of the scarf from Barbara’s warp, but it is definitely more playful and random than I am use to doing.  At least there is a warp on the loom, and I can sit and weave when I’m in the mood!

Speaking of weaving…

Placemat Exchange Score: Mom 8 / Bri 7 1/2…

We are so  close, but poor Bri, she has about 8 more inches to go on the last placemat and…

Yep, that’s right, the friction brake drum sheared right off the back beam again.  Oh crap!  So, I have to figure out a second repair, that will get us through the last eight inches of the placemat exchange, and then I’m retiring that beam, and I’ll switch back to the original sectional beam that came with the loom.  It is a bigger ’round, and much sturdier built beam, and I never had a problem with it the whole 25 years I owned the loom.  This standard warp beam is a complete other story…

And I’m making slow progress on the Sandstone Layers Jacket.  I have the fronts up on the form, there is a funky pleat across the lower right front, which I’m still not sure I like, I’ll wait until pockets and belt looms are on before making my final call, and I’m pretty close to deciding on the seam finish for the center back seam.  I’m liking the Hong Kong finish, the rest of the seams get topstitched, but not this one.

So, it is lunch time, and I’ll putter today, enjoying my special day, I’ve had all sorts of texts, invitations, and phone calls from friends and family who are very near and dear to my heart.  Thanks all for your happy best wishes for the day!