I PROMISE -- SOON!

Hi all - CRAZY WEEK --
1. Landed from Singapore to a crazy bout of jet lag (worse than usual)
2. An unexpected round of mouth surgery (including me taking a bite out of my own tongue while it was numb -- still healing - DUH!)
3. Starting to train my new Assistant who started last Thursday (Can I get an Amen!!!)
4. Diving into my garden to dead-head and clean it up -- it grew a LOT over these last 3 weeks! Tee Hee!
5. 4 members of my family staying with me for this holiday weekend -- a FULL house!
6. Hosting a BBQ on Saturday!
7. SP5 matches when out!!! Yeah!


As requested by the SP5 who has me... (hee hee!)
100 things about me

Secret Pal Questionaire (the one I filled out for SP4...I'm SURE it's still be good!)

Phew! Today will be my last day with my folks for a while -- so no more blogging until Wed! I'm burning the photos from my trip to a CD so that I can upload them at the office (high speed rather than this old dial-up!) There are 300+ photos to get thru and select from so...thanks for your patience while I organize!

Wednesday will also be Thank You day! I have a LOT of people to Thank!

Get on out there and enjoy the day Y'all!

Home Again Home Again!

A quick note to let you know that the monster Singapore Photo Adventure will be up within these next few days! WOW == a few 100 photos to get thru to select the lucky blog worthy ones! And yes -- OF COURSE I squeezed in an afternoon of knitting with some fabulous gals! I mean - I had to have a photo of SOMETHING that will break up the massive amount of food photos that I took! [grin]

I also will post proper thank you's for the wonderful and oh-so-kind RAOKs that were waiting for me when I got home!

And to my Back Tack pal... I'll email when the package is received!
Cheers all!

Hop Skip and a Jump!

I leave my hotel for the airport in 6 hours...and I still need to SLEEP...so this will be BRIEF...

I met Justine in front of her school tonight for a lovely dinner at Patara (see business card/name card to left and right.) The journey to her school was interesting. Her school is in a part of town that I've not been to yet, and thus I had my hotel write down the address in Chinese for me to give the taxi driver. The taxi driver proceeded to drive round and round and of course "didn't understand English" --- yet when I finally caught on to where we were ( a few block away and he kept turning off the road and faining that he was lost... (it would be like not knowing where Broadway was in NYC!) I hollered "I'm getting out!" and he pulled over and I hoofed it a few blocks. The FOOD at Patara was great! The photo to the left is a dish that we were told was called Thai Tacos! I just had to try something called that after the hostess told us it was their house specialty appetizer! To the right is a photo of Justine and I toasting! Between courses we both pulled out our knitting and chatted away! Hmmm...I wonder how I could get to BC for the Festival that she mentions on her blog...Hmmmmm...
We shared a decent bottle of Pinot Gris and a Panang Curry fish, a pile of various mushrooms with garlic and chili and a yummy green papaya salad. YUMMY!

Singapore HERE I COME! (A new stop for me!! Never been before...don't worry -- I'll take a TON of photos!!) I will be staying and playing with my good friend Sharon whom we miss dearly in New York City! She moved home back in December... so a visit is in order!
Saturday we will be meeting Emy and Erin and their SnB (Called Knit & Chat I believe) for a few hours of coffee drinking and knitting and chatting! Yeah!!! New knitters at a new stop! Yeah!!

I'm still knitting baby socks...but I've begun to alter the patterns...I'll let you know how it goes!

Nighty night all!

My Oh My

Where to begin...
This posting will be a bunch of random bits...
First a photo of the largest Mango I've ever seen. The photo is at an odd angle...it was 2x the size of my Blackberry --- and TASTY!

After the Mango and some more work... off to Hong Kong I went. Mag joined me as we were going out for a nice dinner... We called 8 places for reservations... but wouldn't you know it, all of them were closed on Sundays? So we opted for the fine Chinese restaurant in my hotel --- it's always good!


Today I had one meeting in the morning followed by lunch with the owner of the factory that I spend the most time at in China, Paul. It was lovely. He brought me to COVA - a Milanese restaurant that has some locations here in HK. I can HIGHLY RECCOMEND the one in Causeway Bay.
We lunched next to an aged HK Movie star (who's name I don't know.) He apparently was in his 60s but was dressed as though he thought he was 25! Although he seemed to be in good physical shape, no man - EVER - should wear WHITE ankle length boots! Ha ha ha! After lunch we toured their new offices in HK followed by a browse in the High Street shops.

As if THAT weren't lovely enough...
Paul then dropped me off at a Pacific Coffee where I met up with Marjorie and Eva for some KIP! The other gals could not make it, hopefully next time! I must appologize as I didn't take any photos there -- lots of knitting!!! That said -- this is what I accomplished while there! BABY SOCK Pair #3
Yarn: Bouton D'or ~ Caraibes (French company)
Country of Origin: Made In Yugoslavia
Bought in: Hong Kong (last trip)
Content: 100% Cotton

MAN OH MAN -- I SWEAR -- Eva is the fastest knitter I've ever seen!!! Speed demon - I tell you! About 20 minutes after she left us at the coffee shop we received a call from her telling us of some new yarns at the shop next door...so yes...I was drawn in to buying some yarn... Evil Eva!!! I also briefly got to meet Eva's friend Michelle from Malayasia. We bumped into them at the yarn shop...they were STILL THERE 40 minutes after they called us!
From Cheer Wool we journey over to the other yarn shop/craft supply shop in Causeway Bay that we'd checked out last time. That's the photo you see...that's the name on the entry bell... T&A Needlework. I suppose if you named a US yarn shop that you may suddenly get more men interested in knitting? In this shop we were looking thru a Japanese knitting book from Fall 2004 and I saw many of my hats used to style the photos. Apparently they were placed by my Japanese office! It was very cool too see! I can't tell you the name of the book as I don't read Japanese.

From here we hopped over to a lovely Japanese restaurant --- Marjorie - what was it's name?

The food as you can see was lovely to look at and I can assure you it was TASTY to eat!

I loved Marjorie's T-shirt with the Thai Beer logo.

Now I sit here wrapping up my blog from HK...in 10 hours I'll be on a plane to Taiwan and a Wednesday evening KIP session with Justine!

Nighty night all!

The Waiter Did It

It's ROASTING outside today...90F with 90% humidity...and that's in the shade... Yeoch!

Work is pluggin' along...todays music selection includes: Cesaria Evora, Sasha Lazard, Compay Segundo, Angélique Kidjo and Sting... Jammin' I say -- JAMMIN'!
Why is it that I just can't help dancing in my chair to most of the above? I get it from my mother who is a well-known seat dancer...she wiggles to the music even when she claims she can't hear it! :-) Wiggle-on Mom!

A favorite Travel topic....
FOOD!
Today we drove a mere 10 minuites from the factory for a rare lunch out (usually we eat in for time sake.) The factory managers (LL) wife (who name I can't remember - bad Kimberli) and her brother just opened a restaurant! So - OF COURSE I want to try it!!! The cuisine is that of Northern China -- and I was warned (and warned and warned) that it would be spicy!!!
Lets rest all fears - it was spicy - but YUMMY spicy -- VERY flavorful!! So - as a foodie I OF COURSE took photos to share!
First this is my team --- the entire team is here save for Min who was nursing morning sickness. We missed Min.
Sorry for the fuzzy photo...it's the best of 3... The Waiter Did It!!





Here we have the first appetizer: in the center is a delecacey --- pig ear, the out side rows are pig tongue and the rows in between are dried beef. They were all dipped in a garlic/vinegar sauce and then a spicy sauce. It was my first time having both pig parts - but they were fine. They have a texure that I'm not huge on -- but the taste was rather tasty. The beef - yummy.





Then we have the pidgeon (in cage) ...


...and duck (note the head and all!)


These dumplings - devine! and the shrimp --- YUM! The shrimp was the spiciest of all dishes (really? with all of those red hot chillies? Get OUT!) But the FLAVOUR -- YUM! A rich spicy flavor! WOW! And yes -- you eat the entire thing - head and all!


Here's a shot of the entire table of food (pre-dumplings.)


A final shot of the watermelon because it was just so pretty. :-)

I look forward to going BACK....the kicker...
We fed 12 people and there were a ton of leftovers that we took with us...
and the bill: $50 USD including tip.
{gulp} Insane right?

Oh...I've signed up for Secret Pal 5!
4 was a blast!
Deadline to sign up: Midnight CST May 29, 2005.
Matches will be Distributed: On or before June 1, 2005
Secret Pal 5 Dates: June 1 - August 31, 2005
Who is this for? Knitters and crocheters only please.
Rox - SP5's maven -- is asking -- where are all the men who want to participate in SP5?
Go sign up fellas!
Happy weekend everyone!

Straighten Up and Fly Right

Dang it's HOT here! Although it's not so much the heat as it is the HUMIDITY...
today is definately the start of those icky-faced days...not as bad as it'll be in August granted...but the start!
What do I mean by this you may ask? When I first began to travel thru Asia I was asked what it's like? How's the weather and the heat? So I figured a way to describe it perfectly...
Imagine that you've just showered. You feel great - it's even a good hair day! You gaze out the front of the hotel to see a sparkling sunny day outside. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
You walk outside and the moment the air conditioning has left you and the door is closed, a dirty old man comes up and licks your face. Ewwwwwwwwwww right? OK OK -- that's how it feels when it's super humid here. It's like someone has invaded your space and suddenly you are dripping sweaty -- in a nano-second! I know I know, making you all want to rush right on over the China! I suggest to all Westerners who aren't used to heat --- pack a sweater and a wide scarf/wrap... I know you're thinking I'm crazy since I just exclaimed it's sweltering here...
but when you walk into the buildings it's as cold as a refridgerator! So you'll need your cardigan...and if you're skirted or wearing shorts, you'll be glad you have the wrap for your legs!
I'm workin' along over here to some jazzy jivin' big band, swanky swingin'!
I've got my iPod cranked with Robbie Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Norah Jones and a little Frank Sinatra.
It's fun walking into the showroom to view the finished samples in the proper colors of the styles I designed on my last trip -- it's like Christmas! :-) On this trip I'm fine tuning everything from the last trip as well as finishing the last few pieces of Plaza Suite up.
Everyone has to have the samples all done and to my NYC office by May 25th...so it's a race against time (as always!) When I return I finish up the preporations for the photoshoot where the next round of catalogs will be shot. I'm working on Spring/Summer 2006!
Yep - I'm always a year ahead!
The two photos are my view from the new showroom that they built -- it has WINDOWS!!! The left one shows the dorms where folks live. The blue boxs are containers (that's what they're called), that what my hats/bags/scarves/gloves are shipped over the ocean in. The photo on the right shows one of the factories and the active train tracks.

I emailed with my good friend Sharon today to work out the last bits of my visit to see her in Singapore next week! I miss not having here with me in NYC! Of course I'm VERY EXCITED to be taking 4 days at the end of this trip to do something FUN that is NOT WORK RELATED! Yeah!

I have quite a bit of knitting fun ahead of me too.
I'll meet up with the Hong Kong Knitting Gals (so far Eva and Marjorie...hopefully Siow Chin and Joy can join in too!) on Monday after my Hong Kong appointments are all finished (finish work before play!) Then I'll go to Taiwan and meet up with Justine...after all my Taipei appointments are finished! And finally I'll jet over to Singapore and hang with Sharon where we hope to meet up with Erin and her knitting gals in Singapore sometime over the weekend!
It doesn't get much better than that!

Oh --- and because I just don't know when to say NO and how to STOP THE FUN...I signed up for Bead It Two today...where you send off stitchmarkers you've made to other folks. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Back to work I go! It's Fascinating Fascinators time!

PS - Blogspot users - not sure WHAT'S going on -- but BEWARE flipping between preview and compose/edit...it's still eatting posts. I say SAVE AS DRAFT A lot!!!

She's BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Firstly, thanks to all of you for your kind wishes and congrats below! It felt so nice to be able to share it with you all. I often have fun hatty things that I want to share...but unless they're already for sale I have to keep it...under...wraps.

Hello all from China! The 29.5 hour trip was a raging success and I pulled into my hotel at 9am this fine Thursday morning. (9pm Wed night NYC time!)

What a CRAAAZY few weeks!!!

Thanks to Kathy for the BEAUTFUL Jewelry you made!
I've already gotten compliments on it!!!




Thanks to Sedie for the RAOK lunch coupon!! How'd you know there's one right by my office!



Thanks to Dmitri (the BF) who has helped to keep me sane these past weeks! SMOOCH!

I've been super busy...So, let's now go back... for a quick (quick as possible) recap!
...I just KNOW I'll miss something!

Tuesday, May 3...Sweet Charity on Broadway!!!
What FUN!!! Enjoyed this with some gal pals (Linda, Morgan and a new pal Danielle!) Well worth the seeing! Go Go Go! It's just gotten 3 Tony Noms -- Best Musical Revival, Best Actress (Ms. Applegate) and Best Choreography (Wayne Cilento.)
I think Christina Applegate did a great job! Especially considering that she's nursing a recently broken foot! For the record we had seats in the upstairs and they were decent! I think that BroadwayBox may still have a discount code for tickets.


Wed/Thurs May 4-5 -- A Whirlwind night in Edgefield, South Carolina
I flew down to SC to have a daylong meeting with Linda, the art director of my catalog. I tell ya, if you are in need of a graphic designer/art director for a project...she rocks! :-)
It was so nice to go to her neck of the woods for a change (we always have her come up to NYC) and to meet the pooch and kitties that I'd previously only seen on computer screen.
And the HOUSE -- amazing! This photo doesn't do the gardens or the jungle porch justice!
I was also very very happy to meet the gaggle of gals Linda has told me so much about! Ladies...Thanks for welcoming me with open arms and for making me laugh all night! I don't think I've ever heard so many proper uses of the word "kin"! Don't make me put my baby down...You just WAIT until I come back for another Tee-Niny time!!!

Thurs/Friday I spent wrapping up all of the loose ends in the office and Friday night was finished by taking a vendor (and her husband) from Italy out to dinner at Thalia. The food was decent and the atmosphere nice...but the music -- AWFUL! Firstly I must be getting old...because that music was too damned loud! At those prices I'd think they'd want their guests to be able to converse with out yelling. Secondly -- at one point a new song was put on that was Metal - yes, as in Heavy Metal -- and it forced my vendors husband to thrust hid hands over his ears and duck for cover. Although it sounds like it could have been humorous...it wasn't. Poor guy!

Saturday.... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
After a 2-glass-of-Prosecco brunch with Morgan in our hood, I wandered down to the farmers market in Union Square to pick out the flowers for my garden. Yeah! They were delivered at 8:30pm that night -- Another thing I adore about NYC...you can get just about anything delivered! That was all followed by seeing Crash. A disturbing film for sure.

Sunday and the long awaited "One Night Cruise to No Where" on the Norwegian Dawn...
OK - - so it was cancelled because the boat was still in Florida due to weather delays. Hmph.
So - rather than wallow, we gathered up our cruise couple (DeJay and Matt) and spent the afternoon in Sunny NYC at Dive 75 with cocktails and board games. A warning to you all - I play a MEAN Scattagories!

Monday - After breakfasting with our company I dove into planting...
It's at this point that I should let you in on my frequent eyes bigger than stomach routine...well it applies to yarn and plants equally well. The phrases "what was I high on" and "I can't believe I used to be able to squat like this all day in the garden without my back hurting" came to mind more than a couple of times. BUT...
This was the halfway mark...at this photo I'd already planted 1/2 of the plants...the ENTIRE deck that is visible in this photo had originally been covered.
But - not to be undone or outdone by my own self...voila --- done. Even the mints were cut back! Veggies, herbs and flowers planted...and hopefully growing like I know they can as I sit here and type. I've a housefull coming for Mem Day Weekend and I'd love it if they've all grown a bit! (So equal parts of rain and sunshine Mother Nature - OK?)

Tuesday both of my Secret Pal final packages were mailed... Sorry ladies - they aren't elegantly packaged...it was either ship 'em or wrap 'em and hold for two more weeks... I chose ship 'em!

A few final things... in no particular order
1. Justine & Dani -- I 'll get to the memes you ladies left me ASAP.
2. BackTack gals --- yeah! Thanks for my assignees! I'm hunting up some fun fabrics/trims here in China!
3. I've offered the assistant position to someone! Keep the fingers crossed it all works out!
4. KNITTING: I finished another pair of baby socks on the flights here. I'll tell you about the crazy Spanish woman and the 6 year old boy tomorrow!

back to work I go!!!

BLOGGER SUCKS

OK - twice I've written a post and gotten all the tags Correct and added all the photos and twice I've clicked "preview" and then gone back to fix one stupid little thing and in that click Blogger ate all but the very top of my post. Voila.
Vanished.

I'll try again later.
I'm jet-lagged and workin' in Asia folks... that's the update for now.
Cheers.

COUGHING UP A HAIRBALL
(or...things I need to get rid of!)

Yes...Spring "get all this crap out of my house before I loose my mind" has hit! It hit me this morning as I went into my HORRIBLY CLUTTERED and DISORGANIZED studio to find something. Something that I KNOW I saw last week (before the cleaning lady came.) Yes, I have a cleaning lady. Believe it or not it was formally perscribed to me on a doctors perscription pad by my ear-nose-throat doctor. She's right...keeping my face out of the dust DID help to keep me from getting repeated colds. Anyway...I will be posting a list of things that I JUST WANT OUT OF MY HOUSE (Clothing, shoes, books [gulp - yes books], fabric, yarn.)
I have all good intentions to Ebay them...but time...blah blah blah... time will tell. Honestly, some of them I'd be just as happy to RAOK.
I await the rules/details of the next thingy I've signed up for...BackTack! Another reason that I NEED to clear out my studio! There's NO ROOM to work in it!

Wanna see something COOOOOL? Check out the hatching Praying Mantis Pod over on Lolly's Blog! So Cool -- I want one for my garden (Lolly - is it too late in the season? Is there a season?)

It's Hat Award Time

I found out today that this Wednesday one of my hats will recieve a
Milli Award...sadly I was told of this TODAY and I'm already booked on a flight to South Carolina for an overnight trip so there will be no one to accept it. They'll mail it to me.
This is the winning hat -- catagory Best Sunday Hat.
It's COMPLETELY PACKABLE!!!
You can lay it in your suitcase and pop it out the other side of your journey ready to wear to that wedding.




In other hat news...On the way to work this morning I saw 3 people carrying one of my bags (2 different styles) and 2 people wearing one of my hats (again, 2 different styles.)
(These are some shots from my catalog (wholesale) of what I saw this morning!)
Now THAT'S how every Monday should begin!!!
Especially when you follow that by arriving at work only to have the project you've been working on (with a deadline of Tuesday night) totally flipped upside down and backwards...
[Deep Breath] Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
OK - Let's look at it as a challage of how well I can manage my time...which means I should jump OFF the blogging...Lunch is over!
Until later...cheers!

PS...My dear Secret Pal...Thanks for sharing your blog ---- CONGRATS on EVERYTHING (Turning 30, the trip and getting engaged! WOW!) Cheers to ya!



PPS: TO COVET...
It is long and far between when I look at something and think - YEOWZA - I NEED, WANT, DESIRE THAT! I'm not even a "diamonds" and "gold" girl (although I wouldn't pass up some platinum that struck my fancy!) But in checking out the new lines today I ran across this...Ooooooooooooooooh. Not that I can even THINK of dropping $425 on a bag...but YU-MMMY it is... Italian Python! I'm not even an animal/reptile fan... I may just have to swing by the store just to drool... I'll keep you posted. I even have a connection at C.H. --- but he's in the orient working and undoubtedly they will be sold out before I can find out if his price is anywear near to a price I would pay (which in itself is doubtful!)

In honor of my Spoiled Pals...

Here's a link to 100 things about me that I just wrote up so that you can get a quick round up of who has been sending you things these past few months! Yeah Andrea and Tanya! Your last packages will actually be shipped out tomorrow...I just had to wrap up one last thing. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! This has really been FUN FUN FUN! Thanks for letting me spoil you!

The weekend has been good. Yesterday was busier than planned, but fun busy. Oh, firstly - we DIDN'T get BEard Papa's on Friday night because they CLOSE at 8pm??? So - it's still on my list of to do's before I dash back to China! I did learn to play backgammon though and tasted victory (finally!) at the last game of the night!

Yesterday I lunched with a dear friend who's in the midst of relationship woes. Then went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was funny. That followed by dinner at Roponggi (SUSHI!!!!!!!!!) and then dashed to midtown to see the National Comedy Theater. It's competitive improv. Funny. We want to get a gaggle of pals to go - - the more the merrier.

Todays' been loungey and just SLOW...something MUCH NEEDED before tomorrow rears it's ugly head. This week will be a whirlwind...but more on that as it unfolds.
I'm off to bead bead bead - the skirt is coming along nicely. Couching anyone?