Because it never occurs on a Sunday, the Rose Parade is happening today, Monday, January 2. And as DH says every year, another 100,000 people will move to California after watching the beautiful Pasadena spectacle in amazing weather. My divine ordinary for the day is the view from the second floor of our house. I am so grateful to live in Southern California, not just for the weather, but for the life my family gets to live. BTW, the kids are still sleeping. Youth is indeed wasted on the young.
Happy New Year! This morning a visiting priest (Fr. Conlin) gave a lovely sermon referring to the new year as a gift of time and the end of the busy holiday season as the return to ordinary life. He provided the perspective of Mary (today is the Solemnity of Mary) as having given birth to the Son of God, yet having to perform all the mundane and ordinary duties of all mothers in raising a newborn. I really liked his reminder that we, too, can and should recognize the divinity in the ordinary experiences of our daily life. This will be my blogging theme for 2012. Pictured is one of my divine ordinary experiences, petting our 13-1/2 year old Golden retriever, Dusty, in the cool daylight on “his” porch.
On my day off for Veterans’ Day, I drove with DH to his office at LA Live and discovered Day 2 of an immense, geeky campout of over 1000 Twi-hards (die-hard Twilight fans) awaiting the premiere of Breaking Dawn – Part 1 on MONDAY! As a roving reporter for my friend Eileen Rivera’s “Bite Club” podcast, I took some pictures and interviewed some wonderful folks. My complete Flickr set is here, but I’ve embedded some of my favorites.
There are 3 separate huge, white tents covering individual tents on the plaza and two places on Chick Hearn Court, blocked off to traffic between the Staples Center and Nokia Theater. Only people with wristbands are allowed into the tent area and guards keep outsiders at bay at night.
Yahoo Movies is sponsoring a “Twi-Fi Lounge” set up to look like a forest, that’s blasting music and interviewing folks, with a photo opp for Brides of Edward, complete with a huge wedding cake, bouquet and dresses.
Pictured is Dennis Maurice, who drove his Kristen Stewart-loving family from Fort Myers FL for their third premiere. Check out the back of his T-shirt. The family actually has a room at the Westin Bonaventure, but has been sleeping in their tent at night!
Tiffani Maurice runs a fansite for Kristen’s new movie, Snow White and the Huntsman. She also volunteers for a wolf sanctuary call Shy Wolf and hopes to get a t-shirt into Kristen’s hands to help publicize the charity. Tiffani has raised funds for Shy Wolf by auctioning off autographed Twilight merchandise she’s acquired.
Pictured are 3 of 10 canvases that Sherri Kennedy painted and brought with her from Fremont, CA. She has autographs from Robert Pattinson on the Edward canvas (near the L bicep) and from Taylor Lautner on the Jacob canvas (near the red heart). No, these are not for sale. She has other work for sale in her Etsy store, though.
My favorite conversation was with two Filipinas, Annie Palmer on the left from London, and Jela I on the right from Vallejo, CA, who are part of a group of 4 Twi-hards. They also spent the night before the actors’ handprint ceremony at Mann’s Chinese Theater last week and were 7th in the queue to witness it. And, of course, they attended Twi-Con last weekend, where they say they loved the panels and the fan interaction equally.
A group of 14 girls from San Diego set up this cutout cardboard photo op and I couldn’t resist putting my face in it. I know I’m smiling way too much to take Kristen’s place, but how fun is this!
Rob is from Sydney Australia. He flew here just for Twilight, attended TwiCon last weekend, will drive to Phoenix for premiere there. When I asked him how he became a fan, he said he hated it at first. Then he was laid up with an injury at home and got hooked watching a bunch of the movies and read the books that “sealed the deal”. There were several groups announced from New Zealand and Brazil as well.
It’s pretty noisy most of the time, with music blasting and videos projecting on the walls of the adjoining buildings. This final shot is of the huge screen on which repeats of the Breaking Dawn trailer get the most attention, as you can imagine with a 2-story high Edward or Jacob face.
The fellow wearing this fabulous aloha shirt was in the security line at Long Beach Airport ahead of me. As an admirer of kitschy shirts and watermelon, I complimented him on it. He and his wife explained they bought it on vacation in Door County, Wisconsin. I remarked that we used to visit Egg Harbor when I was growing up in Chicago and darned if that wasn’t exactly where they got it. Coinkydink.
Pictured is DS with his 21st birthday present, a Channel Islands/Al Merrick “Fred Rubble” surfboard. Kelly Slater just won the US Open of Surfing on one. Even though DS had the choice of a Firewire (obvious geek cred plus the virture of parabolic balsa wood stringers on the rails, not down the center), I preferred the Fred Rubble just because the name amuses me. Gotta love surfer shaper humor.
Pictured are DS’s 21st Birthday dolphins, frolicking on our front porch. They’ve lasted several days! I’m glad; people have been smiling as they walk past our house.
An all-knitting post, for once! Pictured is my progress (completed Chart C) on the BB KAL on G+. Translation: I’m participating in a KnitALong with about 100 knitter friends on the social network Google+. We voted to cast one a lovely shawlette pattern called Bashful Butterflies on August 16 and post pictures, questions, triumphs, etc. It’s been fun seeing the variety of yarns people are using. The designer, Julia Temiseva, is participating as well. My yarn is Starry, a sockweight Merino superwash in the Deep Seaflower colorway by dreamincoloryarn.com. DS was admiring my progress and the yarn, and expressed a desire for socks in something similar, so I bought him this Malabrigo sock yarn. Since his 21st birthday is tomorrow, I plan to cast on … tomorrow.
Pictured is one control panel for the hospital bed DS was in this weekend. (He’s fine now after some post-operative bleeding.) On the right is a function to “tare” it without a patient in it, so it can measure the patient’s weight AND detect when the patient leaves the bed, as in falls out and can’t tell anyone or tries to sleepwalk or go to the restroom without unhooking various wires. Ingenious!
I had minor surgery today to remove a soft tissue growth on my finger. This is what my hand will look like until I see my doctor next week. Hopefully, the pain will subside before then. The problem with meds and me is that no pain = no brain. Fortunately I don’t have to drive myself anywhere for a few days.
In related news, DS had a tonsillectomy two days ago and we learned the hard way that his system metabolizes out pain meds very quickly. After quite the comedy of errors, we were able to get him something stronger. In a nutshell, since I couldn’t drive, DD had to pick up the scrip, which couldn’t be called in to the pharmacy, she got lost, then the car wouldn’t start for about 30 minutes, then when DH went to pick up the meds, the entire shopping center lost power so the pharmacy closed. When he went back later, the pharmacist was locking up, but opened for him since we urgently needed the new pain meds. All is finally well, except my repertoire of interesting, cold food is running low. Poor DS doesn’t even like ice cream much.
Knitting content: I got in about 10 minutes on a new Broken Rib pattern scarf before pre-op. I will have to drastically alter my knitting style for the next week though 
Non-knitters are welcome to skip … or read and learn! Pictured are two unblocked swatches of Starry, a sockweight and my choice for the Beautiful Butterflies shawlette KAL on Google+ that begins August 16. The left is to gauge (US3) but I think I prefer the right (US5). (My code is in the holes.) It should block out a little airier and larger. I considered using US7′s also, but I might lose the stitch definition. What do you think?
 | Twistedknitster on Rose Bowl Monday |
| caramelicious on Baggy Beanie | |
 | MemeteptIntenry on Free Surfboard |
 | Diane Wilson on Obscure Knitting Dilemma |
 | Emad on FYERFLY, BRAIN WV and IMDB… |
