Socialization

I'm sure missing Trixie - the Latte Dog... No, I don't really let her drink coffee, but she sure loves to lick the last of the coffee-flavored Breve foam from the cup!

Wonder what she's doing right now out at the Avalon doggie ranch on Vashon Island? I'm betting she's digging a hole and has her snout stuck all the way down in it sniffing for China.

So we've been socializing more than usual on this trip so far. We went out to dinner with a few coworkers of Mr. Chirpchatty. Behind the bar of the dining room was a massive embroidered piece done on brown velvet. I'll have to get a close-up shot next time. It's done in a combination of lovely silver and gold threads with various types of embroidery on it. Embigifying this one won't help you really see it.

From a distance, I thought those two large things in the lower corners under the tree were stylized owls. I got laughed under the table for that one. Can't you see the big eyes and the beaks and the swirly feathers? Well, neither could anyone else. They're vases with swirly flowers.

From left to right in the picture below is Mr. Chirpchatty, me, Amos ("ah-MOSE") from the Chennai office, and Jeanette - in town from Manila for training at the same company.

There was a large table of business women having lunch next to me the other day at our hotel. They were having a great time disparaging a few members that weren't there. Then they had a go at the British in general - which is after all their God-given right as Indian Citizens. I finally went over to their table and with shameless flattery and politeness asked if I could take their picture since "Indian ladies always look beautiful." It's true too!

I decided some remedial action was needed on the Juggernaut hat to make it actually fit a newborn. Here it is in triage, while picking up the cast-on edge:

The finished object looks a little strange.

But - when full of head - I think it will work out.

Forgot to mention that I finished the Steam Scarf. Embigification won't help here either - I just can't seem to get a decent picture of it. I was inspired by Ryan knitting this scarf - you can see her version here.

It was fun and relatively quick to do. I decided to add and extra repeat and it now feels like the "Stream Scarf." It's done in a yarn called "Vignette" by Nashua in the "dark brick" colorway. This is a chunky-weight chainstitch yarn - at first I thought it was a baby I-cord. It's like a crochet chain that is then chained again down it's length - kind of like slip stitching back down a crochet chain. Thus, when I needed to splice it (waaaay to chunky to just weave in - I thought) instead of being able to pull one end inside the other for a couple inches as you could with I-cord, I took a needle and wove one end through the sides of the stitches down one side of the chain. Made for a little bulkiness but not bad once knit in.

I should mention that hole sweaters would be cheaper to make than this scarf. I went into Village Yarn & Tea to pick up a needle and was minding my own gosh darn business, when this yarn took a slingshot and pinged a stitch marker off my noggin. Barely even noticed the price was $10.98 for 75 yards. Thought I'd just buy 4-5 skeins and go home and knit that cool Steam Scarf. Then I just HAD to add a repeat, and make it a bit longer - and it WAS chunky weight and I DID have to keep returning and buying a few more skeins (baaaad planning) and 9 skeins later I'm considering bronzing it. At first I thought I'd save it for a gift but decided to keep it and bring it along for the Amsterdam portion of the trip.

This is truer to the actual colors. It's a reversible rib that just doesn't want to stand out in these pictures. The color repeats are long and it's pure serendipity that they were exactly the width of the scarf and made these stripes so consistently. I'd decided to add the 4th repeat before I started knitting it so it was even more surprising!

Right before we left Chennai, my phone charger burnt itself out. I had borrowed it from another Nokia phone and it turned out not to be dual voltage, which most of them are. We stopped in a store on the way down to Pondy - one of the typical little stores that sells cell phone accessories. The salesman looked at my phone, pulled out a charger, plugged it in to show us that it worked and Husband paid and came out with it in a box. When we unpacked it in Pondy it felt unusually litght-weight. Plugged it in......nothing. Tried a different plug....nothing. Turns out the saleman gave us a fresh one in a box from the window, and there are no innards in this one. Taaaad bit of quality control problem. Mr. Chirptechie found me a new one in Pondy. His driver took him to the Nokia store outlet. He was patiently waiting in line to purchase and his driver became very disgruntled that he was not being served. Driver came in, verbally boxed the ears of the attendant, attendant pulls David out of the line and waits on him. A 6-month guarantee comes with this one and it works great. 220 volts is so beefy, it charges in a heartbeat!

So many of the little stores here are no bigger than two-thirds of the size of a latte shack - so there is not a lot of waiting around or queueing inside. You may have to wait your turn to GET inside.

Little girls here often have their hair pigtails with ribbons. They are almost always dressed in what we called in the 50's "frilly party dresses." So cute!

It is also a custom for babies to have a sterling ankle bracelet on both feet. They get new ones at the one and two -year points. Check out this cutie-pie.

Another cute baby with the ankle bracelets, but much more serious!

In further socializing, a coworker of Mr. Chirptechie, "Pankaj" kindly took Jeannette and I out for a tour of the Matrimandir at Auroville. The story of Auroville is a long one and is one of the things that makes Pondicherry such a unique town. I'll talk more about it later. Here are a few pictures. There was actually a breeze that day even thought it was sunny and I climbed all the way to the top of the structure to meditate with the rest - so proud!!! Good picture here of it as it was being built. This is another traveler's description of getting to meditate in the Matrimandir and visit Auroville.

Everyone who visits likes to have their picture taken in front of it. Darn, I forgot my copy of "Knitters' Magazine!"

They have lovely gardens in Auroville - the community is 5 kilometers in diameter. This picture is for dear friend Beryl. Tons of orchids growing everywhere on the site. When Auroville was started it was bare ground - the soil has lots of clay and sand. Now, over one million trees have been planted and it's very lush.

This is one item I carry at all times. It's an inexpensive collapsible Chinese fan.

You never know when a lack of breeze might send you into pre-fainting territory. Last trip to India I carried a lovely African palm fan - that looked exactly like this. The shape was perfect and it worked well, but when not using it you had to either hand-carry it or have it hang from your belt or purse. You don't se many Indian ladies carrying purses. Salwars (babby pleasted pants may have one pocket on the right side only. For saris, a small drawstring purse is tucked under the waist pleats in front before wrapping the final yard or so.

Fan shapes are fascinating. It's like making a study of teapot spouts and assessing which ones pour well and which ones drip. The wider palm or spade shape seems to give the most foof for the fan. The church fans of the American South are also high-delivery air movers. They originally had religious pictures and scriptures on them - made from heavy cardboard with a gigantic tongue-depressor handle. In later years they changed to using the space for advertizing and have now gone more mainstream. My favorite shape from the old days of church fans is the scallop shell shape. I would dearly love to find a wood one as well-made as this one!