A New Fish Pond

After looking around and a long deliberation, I've decided I needed a new Fish Pond. So please update your links, bookmarks, and/or feeds and visit me at...

http://www.fishwithsticks.wordpress.com

Lynda the Guppy

aka The Fish With Sticks

A Love Affair with Photoshop

I've recently acquired a copy of Photoshop. I. Love. It. I've become hooked on Pioneer Woman's blog, and she posts some really amazing pictures. She periodically posts How-To-Photoshop posts that tell you how to make your photos look like hers. So I've been playing around and using her tips as a starting point, and have been editing some of my photos.

I took some of my travel photos and used some Photoshop tricks and here's what I came up with. First will be the Straight out of the Camera shot, followed by the same photo, but edited.

As you can see, I went for subtlety for some, and just went wild for others. Either way, it was just plain fun.

I love this program.

Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish With Sticks

Walking for a Cause

Once again, my mom, aunt, friend, and I all participated in the Revlon Run/Walk today. It took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Colliseum, and I volunteered as a finish line timer. And just like last year, it was the most inspiring, amazing, incredible (and FUN!) day.

Last week I went to the Volunteer meeting to pick up my t-shirt and get my team assignment.

When I walked in the stadium, it looked pretty empty...

Unlike Race Day...




There were tables of medals...







And an army of people to hand them out...




The Olympic Torch was lit...




There were volunteers handing out Survivor Roses...




The runners start arriving...




And two hours later, the walkers are still pouring in...




And the Go-Gos were there!

There were teams with great t-shirts that made me laugh, like “Saving Second Base” and “Save the Ta-Tas";

There was a little girl who was pushed the whole way to the stadium in a wheelchair...and then was helped by her mother to walk to the finish line under her own steam;

There were women, men, kids with signs saying they walked for family, friends, etc. who had fought and survived...and wonderful people who walked for those who had fought and lost the battle;

There were women who were singing along to the Go-Gos at the top of their lungs...just like I was. And possibly a boogie or two;

There was a group of three women...one was a sister, one was a daughter, and one was a niece walking for their sister/mother/aunt who had lost her battle against cancer the day before;

There was a woman who came through my lane who looked like every single step was a struggle. She was exhausted and still she looked at me, sighed with relief, gave me the biggest smile I’d ever seen and said “I made it.” She was a survivor of two months.

The Revlon Run/Walk is always such an emotional day for me. It’s the most amazing, powerful, heartbreaking, and inspiring event. You cannot comprehend the immense feeling of pride to be a human being that day in that stadium. And as a volunteer, it feels so wonderful to help support all these amazing women and their families. I spent most of the day laughing through my tears, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

In fact, I’ll do it all again May 9, 2009.

Who wants to join me?

Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish with Sticks

Twenty-Three

Today would have been Greg’s 23rd birthday. It is so obscene to me that it’s his birthday, and while he should be turning 23, instead he will eternally be 22. It’s been six months since we lost him and it feels like forever…and sometimes it feels like yesterday. One of the last times I saw him was one year ago today. I was in Phoenix working and he drove into town to pick up something for his bike. I took him to lunch next door and we sat and talked for well over an hour. I’m glad he got to see SOME family on his birthday…even if it was just me.

I knew I wanted to post something here to remember this day, and I’ve been considering how best to do that for the better part of the last month. I can’t tell you how many times I started this post only to send it off to the recycle bin. So, here goes.

In the spirit of the way Greg lived his life, instead of looking at all the ways in which we miss him, here is a list of 23 things I love(d) about Greg…

1. He would talk so fast his words would practically trip over themselves.
2. Checking an incoming text messages on my cell phone and seeing him in his blue hair.
3. His crazy t-shirts.
4. His ability to get away with darn near anything!
5. His pointy chin.
6. He was almost always laughing about something.
7. He had more energy than the rest of the family combined.
8. His brilliant mind.
9. His outgoing voicemail message. Even now it makes me laugh. It was so Greg.
10. His absolute enthusiasm for anything he enjoyed and his willingness to explain it in terms that wouldn’t make people’s (my) head explode.
11. His sense of the absurd and willingness to be silly. And allow photographic evidence.
12. His ability to take really great self portraits.
13. Getting an instant message from him one day saying “I need help translating some Latin and I thought of you.”
14. His willingness to take off on an adventure, like traveling to Europe for school, or Hawaii to sky dive.
15. His skill at flipping off a camera…A skill equaled only by his father and siblings.
16. His appreciation of and love for his family and friends.
17. His beautiful eyes.
18. His stupid, silly, groan-inducing jokes.
19. His open mind.
20. An innate curiosity about how things worked.
21. His sense of humor about himself and willingness to laugh at himself.
22. His love of all kinds of music (Except country!)
23. His amazing heart.

Happy birthday, Gregger. You are loved and you are missed every single day.

Love, Cousin Lynda

aka Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish With Sticks

It's My Party and I'll Frog if I Want To...

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

On Friday at work, my office gave me those beautiful flowers as well as a lovely card. And then the cake debacle. LOLOL I am hideously allergic to nuts. I am "Can't Eat Them Or I'll Die" allergic. So the office manager says to me after I've blown out my candles that she had the HARDEST TIME finding me something becuase all the cakes at the bakery had nuts! So, she says proudly, I got this lemon meringue tart.

I laugh until I can't breathe. No one else gets the joke until I say...

I guess this is the wrong time to tell you I'm also allergic to lemon?

Poor thing. LOL But it was pretty damn funny.

After that, my birthday weekend was a bit hectic. On Friday there was a gathering of pals at The Blue Room in Burbank. It was fun, but I knew so few people there and couldn't drink, since I was driving, that I ended up only swapping Christmas gifts with TJ and then heading home.

Saturday was nuts. I ran around like mad trying to get everything done (and I did!) before my office Christmas Party on Saturday night. Oh, BOY. I'd tell you all about it, but I think everyone else would come after me. Let's just say a lot of alcohol was consumed and leave it at that.

As you can tell, my attempt at NaBloWriMo was pretty much a failure in a spectacular way. *sigh* Ah, well. It was just something silly to do (or not). My cousin and I are working on projects for the family for Christmas, and we've been putting in a LOT of hours. And there will be more yet to come, as I still have work to do. And hopefully her Macs will behave. But 2/3 of the gift have been completed, so now it's all on me. Yeah, no pressure there.

In the meantime, my poor cousin. She's been wanting a curly scarf for ages. Remember this one? I cast on back in...um...February?

Well, it seems there's been an accident. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I just got Fed. Up. With. This. Pattern. So I give you...Pink Alpaca Ramen...

She'll still get a curly scarf (eventually), but not this pattern. I'll have to play with a few to see what I like. In the meantime, here it sits...patiently waiting for me to find a use. Any suggestions?

Off to argue more with Flickr.

Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish with Sticks

Gauge is a Filthy Stinking Liar

But you already knew that. Apparently, however, I'm a bit slow, because I was honestly surprised by these two situations.

First are the Harry Potter Bookscarves out of the Charmed Knits book. This is the same pattern, same yarn, same needles for all bookscarves. I even made the exact same pattern modifications in every single one.

Here are the bottoms all lined up nice and neat on a piece of graph paper...


And here are the tops of those same bookscarves.

WTF????

Next up: Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket. I started with Cascade 220 Superwash on size 7 needles.

But I decided the fabric was too tight (especially for Los Angeles) and went up two needle sizes to a size 9. The fabric was much more relaxed and more what I was looking for in a sweater. But here's the catch.

The stitch per inch count was almost exactly the same. I knew you all wouldn't believe me (heck, I don't believe me!) so here's photographic evidence.

Size 7

Size 9

Like I said...A filthy stinking liar.

Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish With Sticks

Spoooooooooky!

I know I'm a little late for Halloween. Deal. LOL

The Office of the Building here at Lawyer, Lawyer, & Lawyer decorate for Halloween in a most unusual way.

Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:


I love it! Spooky Elevator!!!

Happy (Belated!) Halloween!!!

Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish with Sticks

It's finally over

October has ended, and not a moment too soon, in my opinion. It has been a month of loss in all sorts of ways, from the loss of Greg, to the loss of my belongings when thieves broke into my house, to the loss of a quilted, embroidered garment that my mother was working on for her friend Rachel's show, to the loss of lung capacity because of the fires. It's been a month of loss on both a large and small scale, and I am so very glad October 2007 is OVER. Let's hope for a better November, eh?

In the meantime, I have joined NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and the goal is a post a day for a month. (Stop laughing, Mom!) We're off to a semi-good start. It's 11:09 p.m. right this moment, and here I am...posting the first post.

They may not be as eloquent as some of my past posts, but I'll hopefully be prolific.

Of course, it may be light on the pictures, as those ratbastard theives took my camera charger when they took my computer bag.

Ah, well...October is over. On to November and (hopefully) a less dramatic month.

Lynda the Guppy
The Fish With Sticks

Remembrances

Today I am calling my friends. It was the birthday of one of my closest, dearest friends yesterday, so I didn’t want to call any of them, as I knew they were having a party for her and didn’t want them to have this in their heads. I have only been able to tell three people. Apparently that is my limit. That is the most times I can say the words “Killed in a motorcycle accident” without completely losing my sanity. I can’t say it anymore. To say it again would be to make it real, and it can’t be real. Can it? It’s all some sick joke someone’s playing on us. It’s not really him. It’s someone else’s son, brother, cousin, nephew, not ours. It can’t be OUR Greg.

But it is our Greg. And it is OUR beloved son, brother, cousin, nephew. And there is no escaping or changing that fact.

I went over to my aunt and uncle’s house both yesterday and today and it was excruciating. No one should ever be a witness to that kind of pain. They have to be the two strongest people I know, because if I were them, I would be under the bed trying to figure out how to breathe, and talking to friends or family would be beyond my capabilities. But there they are, functioning, making decisions, talking to people. Breathing. And they humble and amaze me.

They left for Arizona today to bring Greg home. For one last time the entire family will be together for a road trip. If I remember correctly, to get where they are going they will most likely pass the spot where he died. I can only imagine what that will be like for them. Are there flowers? Candles? Are there little remembrances as there so often are at sites like this?

While we were driving back from Lake Arrowhead late Friday night, things kept running around and around and around. Aside from the memories of the past and the loss to come, a few images kept showing up.

This one was taken, I think, at his older sister’s birthday party. I don’t know what was happening when this was taken, but it makes me laugh every time I see it. He just looks so annoyed.


The next was taken at my Aunt J’s house. She always had family over for New Year’s Eve, and we’d stay the night. This must be the next morning, and it so perfectly captures Greg: full of energy, going non-stop, and a little bit wild.


And finally, this one. He dyed his hair blue about a year ago. I remember when he sent this picture to my cell phone. I laughed and laughed because it was so typically Greg, and I thought he looked good with blue hair! He had both the personality and the build to pull something like that off.

While searching for those photos, I came across a few others. This past summer I spent some time in Arizona and his sister came out to go with me to the Grand Canyon. We went to Greg’s school so he could show it off for me. We were standing outside the main building and I wanted a picture, so I said, “Hey, smile! I want a picture!” And simultaneously, this is what they did…

They are their father’s children.

This picture was taken before a homecoming dance, I think. The two brothers. This picture also cracks me up because Chris never learned to walk. He strutted from the moment his feet touched the ground. He was Mr. Cool, whereas Greg was the space nerd. In this picture, there Chris is… He looks good and he knows it. And I can almost hear Greg snickering at him and saying “Get over yourself, dude.”

There are other, better, more important pictures of Greg. Pictures of graduations, his senior high school photo, the family pictures taken with his siblings, with his parents, with his grandparents, but those pictures above are my favorites because they show his personality. They show how he really was. I’ll stop counting the days soon…probably after the funeral, but until then…

Today was the second day without Greg.

Lynda
A Grieving Guppy

A Life Too Short

This weekend started out great. My mom and I were headed up to Lake Arrowhead with my Aunt K and Uncle J for this big conference. This year, my mom’s boss was going to be absent, so she was acting as host to over 300 doctors, nurses, and cancer researchers. This year, for the first time, I was able to get away and go with them.

We all left town in the afternoon and made it up there more or less by dinnertime. Mom and a few other doctors kicked off the conference by talking a bit about what was happening in the world of cancer research and what the programs involved were doing. After that was a “Social hour,” where we mingled, ate some snacks, and caught up with people who were there. At about 11 mom and I went back to our “condolet” and sat around talking for about 20 minutes or so before we both decided to call it a night. It looked like it was going to be a fun getaway weekend.

Then our family was shattered.

My Uncle J called just before midnight. He just got a call that Greg, his middle child, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Words cannot possibly do justice to the magnitude of our grief right now.

There’s this cliché that people use when someone dies. They say the person that died was the best of that family/group/office, whatever. And I also thought it was such a dumb thing to say. After all, how could it ALWAYS be the best person that dies? And here I am thinking just that very thing.

In my family, there are no dummies, but he was smarter than all of us put together.

He was going to school at Embry-Riddle to become an AstroPhysicist. While on summer break, he was building a laser. I teased him that he was living the movie “Real Genius.” And, believe me, he was TOTALLY the type to want to fill his teacher’s house with popcorn.

When he was young, like about 7 or so, my aunt came into his bedroom. He was standing on a chair holding two stripped wires and said, “Look mom! Sparkies!”

When he was younger than THAT, he got under my mother’s platform rocker and unscrewed every nut and bolt under there, but left it completely intact. He wanted to see how it worked. The problem was he didn’t tell anyone. We discovered it when the next person sat in it.

He was always building something or taking something apart to see how it worked.

When Greg went away to college, he was lonely and slightly depressed. His mother kept urging him to join a club. Get out. Meet people. He joined a skydiving club. She was thinking more along the lines of book club or movie club. This was not quite the hobby an Emergency Room nurse wanted her child to participate in.

I always felt an affinity to Greg. He and I were always the oddball children. There was 15 years between us, but we were always the kids that went and did our own thing, no matter what anyone else thought. We were the ones most likely to sit and listen to someone’s advice and we’d nod and agree and say “yes, absolutely,” and then turn around and completely ignore them and do it our way. In a family of extroverts, he was the only introvert. But once you got him talking about something he was passionate about, you couldn’t get him to stop.

I forget why we had it, but I remember my dad had this whistle. This whistle sounded EXACTLY like a train, and Greg was obsessed with trains almost since birth. And when he was about 4 or so, we’d sit in the living room and someone would blow on it, and his eyes would get huge and he’d say There’s a train! A train! And he’d race around the room looking for it, and we’d pass the whistle to someone else, and they’d blow it, and he’d run around to them. We could have kept this up for DAYS.

When my grandmother died about a year ago, we found a lot of things of my grandfather’s. And I remember telling Greg how much Granddad would have loved Greg. He was a carpenter and was always fixing or building something, and he would have ADORED his grandson. Watching Greg grow up, I always wished Granddad could have seen him. He and Granddad would have been tinkering with something every chance they got, and I can only imagine what kind of trouble they would have gotten into.

What keeps running through my head are all the stories I want to share about him. Things I want to tell people…tell anyone…tell everyone. Just so he doesn’t completely disappear.

Another thing that keeps going around and around are all the missed opportunities, like getting married, having kids, being there when his siblings get married and have their kids. Graduating college. Buying a house.

Turning 23.

I always thought Greg would grow up and go to college and do great things. I thought he’d find a new galaxy or build a better rocketship or something. Now…now I can’t even imagine a world without that amazing, brilliant brain in it. It is incomprehensible to me that the bright and beautiful light that was Greg is now dark. There is this huge, aching hole inside me and I don’t know what to do.

On the way up to Arrowhead we had heard Garth Brooks’ latest song, and, like the earworm it is, it got stuck in my head. There was too much noise during the party and conference kick-off for me to pay attention, but on the drive home I kept hearing in my head, like this endless loop, the following lyrics…

Waking a friend in the dead of the night
just to hear him say its going to be alright
When you're finding things to do, not to fall asleep
Cause you know she will be there in your dreams
that's when she's more than a memory

And every time it replayed in my head I wanted to scream and cry and fall to my knees, but I couldn’t. I had to suppress all the grief and rage and every emotion just to make it home safely. Driving down the mountain in foggy, white-out conditions was probably the dumbest thing we’ve ever done, but there was absolutely no other option. Waiting for morning wasn’t even a consideration. We WERE going to get down. And we WERE going to do it safely, because anything else was not to be tolerated. This family could not have taken even one iota more of difficulty. My mom and I were reduced to banal conversation, small talk, chatter about her work or my work, because anything even touching on what we were racing towards would have broken us both, and we didn’t have the time for that. The goal was to get home. Get to my aunt and uncle’s house. Get to my cousins. Hug them. Hold them. And then and ONLY then could we take the time to start grieving.

When we exited the freeway and we were only minutes from their house, I had this insane urge to turn the car around and head back to Arrowhead as fast as I could. If we just got back there and went to bed, when we woke up everything would be fine. Greg would be alive. Our family would not be talking about how to bring him home from Arizona. Phrases like “head-on collision” and “medical examiner” and “release the body” would not be part of our family’s legacy. But I couldn’t. And we are discussing just that. And those horrible, hateful phrases are something that will forever be a part of this family’s story.

I remember my grandmother’s funeral just a year ago, and I remember how hard it was and how ANGRY I was. People kept telling me she was “in a better place” or “at least she didn’t suffer” and I wanted to slap them. Just scream at all of them to leave me alone! I remember thinking “don’t these people realize there is NOTHING to say to make it easier??” I wanted to yell at everyone that the best thing is just say “I’m sorry” and leave it at that. I didn’t want pathetic platitudes. I just wanted someone ANYONE to just acknowledge that whether or not we were ready for her to go, it still sucked and it still hurt and I was not ready to hear about her “better place.” Not then when my grief was so fresh.

Greg’s funeral is going to be a million times worse. We were ready and prepared for my grandmother’s death. We had been sitting vigil at her bedside for 3 days. Greg…it’s so senseless. A motorcycle, a crossed yellow line, a semi…And for him to be so young and to know he will never get any older…I can’t begin to wrap my head around it.

Our family has changed in so many ways in an instant. His family went from a family of five, to only four around the dinner table. Of the four grandchildren, there were two girls and two boys. Now Chris is the only boy. There were three siblings, and now the two remaining have to figure out a way to go on with this huge gaping hole in the middle. When you talked about them it was always “J, K, Allisongregchris.” How do we adjust to “Allison____Chris”?

My life was brighter for having him in it, and it’s now so much darker in this world without him.

Today is the first day without Greg.

Lynda
A Grieving Guppy

A Rainbow Connection

Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbow's are visions
They're only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide

Here's just a taste of what I saw while driving from the west end of the San Fernando Valley across the 101/134 to Pasadena. The pictures don't do it justice.

And just so you don't think I spent the weekend chasing rainbows, I finished a shawl!

Pattern: Tapestry Shawl
From: Just One More Row
Yarn: Schaeffer Nancy in...ummm...I don't remember the color.

Modifications: Because I used the Schaeffer instead of the recycled silk the pattern called for, I went down to a size 13 needle. I also only did 14 points instead of 15, as I liked the way it fit at that point.

Also, my shawl is the "Featured picture" for that pattern on Ravelry! Whoo! This little guppy is just everywhere these days!

My coworkers have been watching me knit this shawl, and everyone LOVES the colors. (Trust me...the colors are much MUCH better in person). So after I finished knitting it Wednesday, I brought in something else to work on. My coworkers immediately started questioning the change. Keep in mind, these people have known me for exactly 3 months, and the conversation went something like this:

Them: What happened to your other project?

Me: It's at home.

Them: Did you finish it?

Me: Yes, I just have to weave in the two ends.

Them: Is it REALLY finished or do you have it in a drawer somewhere with all your other projects?

Can you believe that??? Three months, NONE of them knit, and they're giving me grief over my UFOs?!?!?! LOLOL They've got a lot of nerve doing that to a woman holding metal pointy sticks!

This weekend I've also cast on MimKnits's Hidcote shawl in purple Malabrigo Laceweight, and EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket in fuschia and acid green Cascade Superwash. I'm really liking both this pattern and the feel of this yarn. It's been a while since I've worked with such a standard yarn. Don't get me wrong. I'm far from a yarn snob. In fact I probably have more containers of Cascade than I do of Koigu...ok, that was a lie, but still! I have quite a bit! I've just been working on some specialty stuff, so it's been Alpaca this and Merino that and Noro over there. It's nice to do some basic, plain knitting. And since the baby isn't due until the end of December, I'm hoping I'll make the deadline. LOL

Wish me luck!

Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish With Sticks

Thunder and Lightning and Rain! Oh, My!

Yesterday while at work we were in the midst of Storm Watch here in Los Angeles. We were supposed to be hit with the worst storm in September in nearly 30 years. Traffic will be horrible! Cars will be sliding! People surfing the L.A. "River"! Hail! Rain! Flooding! Thunder! and Lightning! Very, very frightening!

Or, you know, not.

Four hours later, though, things were quite a bit different.


And we did get some serious weather last night. There was in fact thunder and lightning. No hail, though, which the GuppyMobile is very grateful for, as she was parked outside through the worst of it.

Today it's still raining off and on, but should clear up tonight. I love it.

Lynda the Guppy
aka The Fish With Sticks