Thanks to some circular Addi Turbo knitting needles I can knit with quite a bit more comfort with my broken arm.
Often referred to as the "Cadillac" of knitting needles, their smoothness cuts me a lot of slack on how much I have to move my elbow and hand in using them. So I can now work on two projects at a time: the Ruffles scarf and the Misty Garden scarf, both in the Scarf Style book. Both scarves are very easy and almost mindless, and just want I need at the moment.
The Addi Turbos are made in Germany, and are smooth and slick and have quite a cult following among knitters. Brenda Dayne from Cast On and Dave from Chubb Creek have even given them their own sound in Episode Six: the light saber swishing sound from Star Wars.
And have now just found this from knit and wax poetic
Ode to Addi Turbo
18 March, 2007
Our third Embassy Chili Cook-Off in Kz
making rice, in spite of no running water for 2 days
ME fussing as usual, with my neck sling and arm hidden by the shawl but ACTUALLY holding something!
the picture says it all!
the three intrepid judges
getting set up: the formal furniture was dismantled and stashed in other rooms
LOTS of food and fabulous desserts
Front door boot area: check out the funky leopard Wellingtons that belong to Victoria
We can't live without these three ladies!
The Beginning of the end ... of winter
The photo is skewed so that the snow seems deeper than it really was this past week. It is just this deep here, where our intrepid heroine local gardener Claudya shoveled the pathway.
More landscaping is starting amidst the melting snow. Right now it seems to be birches and pines.
08 March, 2007
International Women's Day - March 8
Today is International Women's Day. and the Embassy has a four day bridge holiday. That means if we were a "local" company, in order to get a three day weekend, one would have to work on Sunday. But Embassies don't work on Sunday, so everyone here gets a four day weekend.
Flowers, chocolates and often gifts are exchanged. Our staff gave me my favorite Vichy body lotion and a lovely card, and a whole group of Kz employees gave me flowers. I gave our staff chocolate and pashmina shawls that Eileen had brought back from Istanbul, and had the Front Office OMSs and the Protocol assistants for lunch with the added bonus of a delicious home made devil's food cake by Galiya!
The Embassy newsletter has a chronology of the history of Women's Day. The newsletter is sitting around here somewhere -- when I find it, I'll give a synopsis.
Flowers, chocolates and often gifts are exchanged. Our staff gave me my favorite Vichy body lotion and a lovely card, and a whole group of Kz employees gave me flowers. I gave our staff chocolate and pashmina shawls that Eileen had brought back from Istanbul, and had the Front Office OMSs and the Protocol assistants for lunch with the added bonus of a delicious home made devil's food cake by Galiya!
The Embassy newsletter has a chronology of the history of Women's Day. The newsletter is sitting around here somewhere -- when I find it, I'll give a synopsis.
First (arm) check up
Showed a tiny bit of an edge of the break starting to move up properly. Saw a side view of the long part of the break -- saw enough to get a quesy stomach.
So ... it's going to be a long haul. Did get permission to start moving my arm as much/little as I can,which means I may also sit and try and knit.
Thank goodness the ruffles scarf is easy and brainless and I can manage a few rows at a time. The funny thing is that I really love wooden needles, but NOW is when I should have slippery metal needles. When I next get a brain/some emergy I'll go and try and look to see if I have any needles "out" that aren't packed away in the closet full of huge tupperware containers of fiberart things. Otherwise, maybe I should order some nice straight Addi needles as a treat -- do they come in "straight" sizes?
It will be a while though before I can pick up on my grapevine socks. Right now "moving my arm" means taking it out of the neck sling and placing it on the laptop keyboard or placing it on my stomach. Interesting on how the muscles work -- the break is high, but below the shoulder, but there still soft tissue swelling in the elbow area etc.
Am slowly getting through "The Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick. Shocking how different the "truth" is from the 2nd grade stories of the landing at Plymouth. Saw in a Nov New Yorker that the History channel had a program on the subject, so we are going to try and see if it's available on Amazon.
So ... it's going to be a long haul. Did get permission to start moving my arm as much/little as I can,which means I may also sit and try and knit.
Thank goodness the ruffles scarf is easy and brainless and I can manage a few rows at a time. The funny thing is that I really love wooden needles, but NOW is when I should have slippery metal needles. When I next get a brain/some emergy I'll go and try and look to see if I have any needles "out" that aren't packed away in the closet full of huge tupperware containers of fiberart things. Otherwise, maybe I should order some nice straight Addi needles as a treat -- do they come in "straight" sizes?
It will be a while though before I can pick up on my grapevine socks. Right now "moving my arm" means taking it out of the neck sling and placing it on the laptop keyboard or placing it on my stomach. Interesting on how the muscles work -- the break is high, but below the shoulder, but there still soft tissue swelling in the elbow area etc.
Am slowly getting through "The Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick. Shocking how different the "truth" is from the 2nd grade stories of the landing at Plymouth. Saw in a Nov New Yorker that the History channel had a program on the subject, so we are going to try and see if it's available on Amazon.
03 March, 2007
Some past knitting
I finished this up at Bear Valley for Julia. It's a rich dark green tweed -- bigger than it shows in the photo. ALso finished a Claudia's Handpaint long textured scarf: a little scratchy, but quite warm. That particular pattern was a lot of fun, and very fast on large needles with a skein of Handpaint and a skein of Brown Sheep.
Started the ruffle scarf from Scarf Style in fuschia Karoke soy wool, and it is something I can actually work on very slowly with my broken arm. The soy silk wool actually has a "fake" feeling to it -- I'm not sure I'd make anything large with it again, as in a garment, but it's fine for a scarf. I want the scarf to be long, so I had already ordered 2 more balls before I left for London. We'll see how many feet 5 balls make. It will be interesting blocking the thing a little -- it's quite curly. It probably would be stunning in alpaca or cashmere though!
I'm making great progress today: I'm actually typing this with two hands with the computer resting on my lap supporting my right hand. No way I could do this at my regular desk though. Getting dressed is still painful and exhausting -- I certainly feel wimpy!
We had a beautiful moon out last night, and then realized we missed a lunar eclipse -- at 4:00 am. Sorry: I was sleeping!! Otherwise, we've had cold weather but two days of no "wind" -- meaning lots of pollution. Bright sunshine, snow, and ice. My friend in Paris tells me things are blooming!
02 March, 2007
Life ... with a broken arm
We got back to Astana February 7th, spent the next two weeks having an immediate delegation visit, whirlwind meetings to get on top of things (follow ups from a Washington visit to the Overseas Briefing Center) and getting over jet lag.
Was ready for a three day weekend and an attempt to organize some quilting fabric on a newly delivered bookshelf, when 5 minutes before a start of an official lunch on Friday the 16 I tripped over the housekeeper AND the bathroom rug in one of the guest bathrooms and caught my fall on the counter. Ouch -- got out to London the next am with John to see what they were going to do with a spiral fracture of my upper right arm.
Traveling for what seemed like a day and a half with the time differences, landed at Princess Grace Hospital urgent care via a quite comfortable business class route, but totally unable to do anything for myself. Got painkillers, lots of sympathy, more x-rays and a follow up appointment with an ortho later in the week.
To wrap up the week of a miscommunicated appointment, broken x-ray picture printers and two $70 wash and blow dry hair appointments, we stayed through Thursday with no surgery, a neck sling, and a three month healing prognosis.
The Marriott hotel was lovely (off Oxford street)with two nearby Starbucks (a definite home away from home). We got lots of TLC from the Embassy, saw "Blood Diamond" (9.5 pounds sterling each) and a few meals out. Getting bathed and dressed or really doing anying without hubby would have been impossible, but otherwise I just had to take it easy. It was frankly sort of shocking after the third day to wake up and realize that the "pain" was here to stay for a while. Having John's help and support has meant everything!
Getting back here business class from BA wasn't that swanky, with an engineering delay before we even left London, and then some other technical glitch in Ekaterinburg with a delay of 3-4 hours. Luckily at this point all/anything of any effort just exhausted me, so I cat-napped though it all. We of course missed our connecting flight in Almaty, and with a snow buran going on in Astana, spent the night at the fabulous suite in the Hyatt. Anything of comfort has been greatly appreciated!
So... we got home Saturday evening. It was still shocking how little I could do for myself, ad sleeping comfortably took a while to figure out. It takes two different beds, depending on what time of the night it is, and lots of pillows. Computering was almost impossible, with even "body twisting" movements (sitting at the desk) painful.
Sunday evening was a full fledged buran -- snow flying horizontally with over 50 mph winds with white-out conditions. I was up most of that night (we were also expecting an official visitor so the phone was ringing a lot, and the wind/snow looked like a ground tornado. The Embassy called an unofficial "snow day" on Monday, even though we had blue skies. People had to dig out, just to start with. Kevin and Eileen lost their trip/flight to India for the week but at the last minute manged to get a trip into Istanbul (as their shower at home was being dismantled and replaced).
So... I've been "back" for a week and can do a teeny tiny bit more for myself each day. The pain is less, but in general the same, so round the clock ibuprofen is a must. It is very strange at not being able to pick things up off the floor, open bottles of water, give myself a shower and more. We are all SO used to multi-tasking everything that just reading and doing nothing else is strange. But I have lots to read, including lots of back fiber mags.
John set me up on his laptop, so I can now type this (with one hand)and internet surf ... while he backs up my computer to reinstall Windows. My laptop just seems overloaded with some memory sucking issues, so the only remedy is the re-installation. Then I can get back to downloading podcasts, too!
I did try some knitting last night continental style, thanks to Craft Sanity and her You Tube video. I almost cried in relief -- it was slightly painful but thrilling to realize I could do it! So I am much more upbeat about the time ahead of me, and a better ability to use a computer after a week. I have lots of websurfing to catch up on knitting wise, and am already printing up future projects. I get some new x-rays tomorrow, so we'll get to see how the first two weeks hsve gone.
Was ready for a three day weekend and an attempt to organize some quilting fabric on a newly delivered bookshelf, when 5 minutes before a start of an official lunch on Friday the 16 I tripped over the housekeeper AND the bathroom rug in one of the guest bathrooms and caught my fall on the counter. Ouch -- got out to London the next am with John to see what they were going to do with a spiral fracture of my upper right arm.
Traveling for what seemed like a day and a half with the time differences, landed at Princess Grace Hospital urgent care via a quite comfortable business class route, but totally unable to do anything for myself. Got painkillers, lots of sympathy, more x-rays and a follow up appointment with an ortho later in the week.
To wrap up the week of a miscommunicated appointment, broken x-ray picture printers and two $70 wash and blow dry hair appointments, we stayed through Thursday with no surgery, a neck sling, and a three month healing prognosis.
The Marriott hotel was lovely (off Oxford street)with two nearby Starbucks (a definite home away from home). We got lots of TLC from the Embassy, saw "Blood Diamond" (9.5 pounds sterling each) and a few meals out. Getting bathed and dressed or really doing anying without hubby would have been impossible, but otherwise I just had to take it easy. It was frankly sort of shocking after the third day to wake up and realize that the "pain" was here to stay for a while. Having John's help and support has meant everything!
Getting back here business class from BA wasn't that swanky, with an engineering delay before we even left London, and then some other technical glitch in Ekaterinburg with a delay of 3-4 hours. Luckily at this point all/anything of any effort just exhausted me, so I cat-napped though it all. We of course missed our connecting flight in Almaty, and with a snow buran going on in Astana, spent the night at the fabulous suite in the Hyatt. Anything of comfort has been greatly appreciated!
So... we got home Saturday evening. It was still shocking how little I could do for myself, ad sleeping comfortably took a while to figure out. It takes two different beds, depending on what time of the night it is, and lots of pillows. Computering was almost impossible, with even "body twisting" movements (sitting at the desk) painful.
Sunday evening was a full fledged buran -- snow flying horizontally with over 50 mph winds with white-out conditions. I was up most of that night (we were also expecting an official visitor so the phone was ringing a lot, and the wind/snow looked like a ground tornado. The Embassy called an unofficial "snow day" on Monday, even though we had blue skies. People had to dig out, just to start with. Kevin and Eileen lost their trip/flight to India for the week but at the last minute manged to get a trip into Istanbul (as their shower at home was being dismantled and replaced).
So... I've been "back" for a week and can do a teeny tiny bit more for myself each day. The pain is less, but in general the same, so round the clock ibuprofen is a must. It is very strange at not being able to pick things up off the floor, open bottles of water, give myself a shower and more. We are all SO used to multi-tasking everything that just reading and doing nothing else is strange. But I have lots to read, including lots of back fiber mags.
John set me up on his laptop, so I can now type this (with one hand)and internet surf ... while he backs up my computer to reinstall Windows. My laptop just seems overloaded with some memory sucking issues, so the only remedy is the re-installation. Then I can get back to downloading podcasts, too!
I did try some knitting last night continental style, thanks to Craft Sanity and her You Tube video. I almost cried in relief -- it was slightly painful but thrilling to realize I could do it! So I am much more upbeat about the time ahead of me, and a better ability to use a computer after a week. I have lots of websurfing to catch up on knitting wise, and am already printing up future projects. I get some new x-rays tomorrow, so we'll get to see how the first two weeks hsve gone.
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